


How to Get Along With an Omega (If you must)

by sarahyellow



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bigotry & Prejudice, Crime Solving, Dubious Consent, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Weird Biology, mention of MPREG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:51:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3444395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyellow/pseuds/sarahyellow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People treat S.S.A. Spencer Reid differently because he's omega, but that's not news to him and he has no intention of letting it hold him back from joining the BAU. Spencer knows that he can do this. What he doesn't count on however, is a very troublesome alpha one desk over in the bullpen. S.S.A. Derek Morgan might prove to be Spencer's undoing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It would have been easier if he'd been an alpha

**Author's Note:**

> Okayyy. My second CM fic and my first chaptered one. I only recently found out about this whole alpha/beta/omega verse trope. I have to say it's very weird, but kinky too so I'm giving it a whirl. Putting my own spin on things of course. There will be severely adult content later, but I suppose it's a bit of a slow burn. Since I enjoy the crimes from CM, I really tried to include a fleshed-out case for the BAU team. Hopefully you guys are all brave enough to give me some very honest, interesting feedback. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. Enjoy!

Spencer sat in the front row of the university lecture hall, for once not at all comfortable about being in such a place. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, itching the skin on the back of his neck like some tag he’d forgotten to remove from a sweater. He twiddled his thumbs to keep himself from actually scratching his neck. Was he really here doing this? What had he been thinking? 

Usually he loved learning, loved being on campus—any campus—any chance that he got. In the past he’d have been one of the students seated in the rows behind, progressing on work for one of his PhDs. He had them. Three to be exact. More recently though, he’d found himself in the role of guest-lecturer, having been assigned to various college campuses by the FBI as a recruiting tool. It was because he was young and supposedly relatable to the undergraduate students, Spencer knew, not because he had any special skill in teaching others. He didn’t. He was an autodidact, after all. He was proficient in teaching himself to do things, not others. Still, after having to fight so hard for admittance to the academy in the first place, he’d found it sort of flattering that in the end the FBI would send him out to represent the bureau. Him, of all people. He, who so often wound up being the one of whom other people were embarrassed, not proud. Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid.

That flattered feeling had only been part of why he’d accepted the offers to lecture though. It seemed worthwhile to Spencer to awaken the desire to do good in others, and every chance he got to turn some wandering, brilliant mind onto the law-enforcement track was a chance worth pursuing. Where would he have been, after all, if Jason Gideon had never recruited him? Spencer would have bet money that he’d be in a family way by now, or else stuck in some low-level, low-paying, underwhelming desk job to whittle away the hours and to pay the bills. No, the FBI had saved him from such a lackluster existence, and Spencer Reid was determined to pay back the favor. 

His current situation was a favor. That much was for sure. It was him doing a favor for a friend he had made while guest lecturing at Virginia Tech. Now Spencer was present as less of a teacher and more of an example—a specimen, for lack of a better word—demonstrative to the topic on which Spencer’s friend, Professor Neal Whitlock, was lecturing that afternoon. The slides that slashed across the PowerPoint screen contained topic-relevant phrases and colloquialisms such as ‘SinGen’ and ‘Gen2’, the topic of the last hour having been about societal relations between two said groups. Spencer was there as the token member of the latter group, Gen2: second-gendered individuals. It went without saying that it was the biggest social issue of their generation, the descendent to an era spent fighting for gay rights. Now Reid had gone and volunteered to effectively ‘out’ himself to an entire campus? Stupid. 

Neal stood at the front of the room, concluding the lecture and beginning his introduction of his colleague. “Doctor Reid works at the FBI headquarters in Quantico, as I’m sure some of you may already know,” Neal was saying. Spencer felt the itch on the back of his neck grow, several students in his near vicinity obviously turning to look more directly at him. “Doctor?” Neal asked of him from the front of the room, gesturing for Spencer to join him. “If you would?” Spencer swallowed, unfolding his legs numbly from the where he’d been seated. Despite having lectured in this very auditorium before, he felt incredibly out of place as he stepped in front of the room of students. He licked his lips, taking in the quiet crowd of eyes. Perhaps sensing Spencer’s discomfort, Neal segued for him, “…For those of you who haven’t attended his lectures here, Dr. Reid is a Federal Agent with the FBI in Quantico, specializing in geographical profiling. He holds PhDs in Chemistry, Engineering, and Mathematics, as well as Bachelors degrees in psychology and sociology.”

Reid glanced over at his friend, compelled to volunteer, “I’ve also just completed the requirements for a B.A. in philosophy.” His eyes darted out over the assembled body of students, “—from this university,” he added, as if this extra piece of information would make the awkward looks of disbelief melt from the students’ faces. It didn’t. In the end, he mumbled what he always wound up mumbling in way of an explanation, “I have an IQ of 187. I’m a genius.”

Neal tried to deflect attention back to the topic at hand. “Ah… Dr. Reid is here today to talk to you all about the realities of life as a second gendered person. We’ve gone over the topic of SinGen-Gen2 societal relations, but academic discussion can only get us so far. And so, as a personal favor to me, Dr. Reid has volunteered to field your questions today. I’ll open up the floor to him so that he can make more of an introduction of himself.” 

Neal walked back to go and sit in a vacant chair near the auditorium door, and Spencer was left to stand alone in front of the room. Neal’s reassuring look did little to promote his confidence. Giving a little wave, he cleared his throat to say, “Hi.” The nervous hitch to his voice made Spencer want to wince, and he tried to straighten his posture into something a bit more confident. Why should he feel so out of sorts? He was used to this, after all. Standing in front of a bunch of befuddled, disinterested college students should have been no big deal for him. “Um, as Professor Whitmore explained, I’m Dr. Reid. I work with the FBI and I occasionally lecture here.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, but today I’ve come in as an expert on second gendered peoples. …I am one,” he tacked on hurriedly, stating what he wasn’t sure was the obvious. “So…” he trailed off, not really sure where to elaborate from there. When called in for his expertise in mathematical theory, in statistical trends or in psychological analysis of psychopaths, it was easy to know his role, to know what to say to a room of people watching. When called in for what Spencer viewed as the less-impressive fact that he was second gendered, he had much less of an idea of where to begin. Indeed, he stood there feeling as if he didn’t know what to say at all. He walked behind Neal’s abandoned podium and folded his arms on it. “So yeah. I’ll take any questions you have.”

For a moment no one moved. But then a few hands appeared. Spencer nodded at one girl in the front row, who quickly asked, “What is your second gender?”

“I’m omega,” Spencer answered plainly. To him, it was as commonplace as stating that he was tall, or that he had brown hair. He knew that to other people however, the title of ‘omega’ carried more meaning than that. He nodded at the next student with their hand raised, a young man a few rows back. 

“We’ve been discussing the fluidity of sexual orientation and the Kinsey scale’s applicability to Gen2 populations. Professor Whitmore says that it isn’t applicable. What’s your opinion?”

Spencer blinked, impressed by the student’s forwardness. “Well I’d have to agree with him. The Kinsey scale was designed to rank fluidity of sexual orientation, but only in regards to primary gender.”

“You have a primary gender,” the student pointed out bluntly.

Spencer smiled. “Yes, I’m obviously a man, and I’ve always identified as one. If I were single-gendered, then my sexual orientation would depend on—would be defined by—what primary gender I was oriented to: males or females,” he explained. “But it’s different with second gendered people. Traditional labels of straight or gay don’t apply because our sexual orientations aren’t grouped along those lines. Rather, a Gen2 person will have an orientation defined by which secondary gender they’re oriented to.” More than a few of the faces in the crowd squinted at him, and Spencer realized that perhaps his words were confusing his audience. “Simply put,” he explained, “A regular woman—a SinGen woman—might like only men, only women, or maybe both. That labels her as straight, lesbian, or bisexual.” Several students nodded their heads to let Spencer know they were with him on this strain of reasoning. “But conversely,” he continued, “No matter their primary gender, a Gen2 who is an alpha might like only other alphas, only omegas, or maybe both. The attraction for second-gendered people is dependent solely on the secondary gender, regardless of whether the other person is male or female.” He shrugged. “That’s why Gen2s have so often been assumed to be bisexual. From a SinGen point of view, it is technically true.”

“So…” A girl not far from Spencer’s right was hesitantly positing, “You’re a guy, and you’re omega.”

Spencer nodded. “Yes.”

“So your version of ‘straight’ would be if you were attracted to… alphas?” she sounded unsure.

“Erm, yeah. That’s right.”

“But they could be a man or a woman, as long as they were alpha?”

Spencer wasn’t even sure which student had blurted out this last question, but he answered anyway. “Yes. As someone who is omega, my orientation would be the equivalent of ‘straight’ if I was oriented to alpha men and women. I think you’ve got the idea right.” Though he’d been willing to reveal his omega status early on, Spencer had made quite the attempt to avoid going into specific, personal details about his own sexual orientation. These students didn’t need to know that much detail to further their education. Shifting his stance to try and regain control of the discussion, he said, “So that’s covered. Does anyone have any other questions?” He tried to make it clear in his voice that they should move on from this focus on sexuality. Too often, it seemed, the focus seemed to wind up there. “This course has talked about issues of inequality, has it not?” he prompted. “Educational hurdles, workplace discrimination, legal movements? Any questions about any of that?”

In another moment a new student had raised their hand. “Workplace discrimination,” he said. “It’s prevalent amongst Gen2 people, especially towards omegas. Have you experienced that?”

Spencer frowned but nodded. “I have. It’s something that popular rhetoric often claims is behind us, but unfortunately we have not come as far as people would like to think.”

“How does being a secondary-gendered, omega man affect your life?”

Spencer sighed. “A lot, unfortunately.” Quoting statistics, he spouted, “Ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities have been discriminated against throughout history. Gen2 minorities are no different. Alphas and Omegas, and occasionally even Betas are routinely discriminated against at higher rates than the general population. You asked about workplace discrimination? Hiring practices are a great example of that. Omega men and women are four times more likely to be rejected for positions of advancement in the field of medicine, nine times more likely to be rejected in the field of education, and an astounding fifteen times more likely in law-enforcement.”

“But you work with the FBI,” one student announced, as if this fact was refuting proof of such statistics. “You’re omega and you’re an FBI agent.”

Spencer stared, not sure what to say. “Yeah,” he finally uttered, feeling proud at being able to say so. “Yeah I am.” What he didn’t say was that the students assembled before him had no idea just how hard he’d had to fight to earn that privilege. What he did say was, “It would have been easier, if I’d been alpha.”

\---

Derek Morgan walked off the elevator at the FBI headquarters with an easy grin on his face and a steaming travel mug of coffee held comfortably in his hand. A downright luxurious three day weekend had left him feeling relaxed and at the top of his game. It didn’t matter how much bullshit busy work was waiting for him today. He was sure that this week was going to be good. Maybe he’d take a long lunch and hit the office gym. His good-natured strut up to the office doors went as smoothly as usual, but it ended the moment he stepped into the bullpen. 

His nostrils twitched, his senses immediately alerting him to the scent of an omega. It was muted—layered with the scents that a room full of stressed-out people and their pheromones tended to bring—but it was still most definitely there. For someone like Morgan, the trace of an omega was unmistakable, and distracting at best. Derek let his eyes track across the room, taking in who was there. The regular staff and a few other vaguely recognizable FBI agents milled about. There was a wiry, young-looking guy talking to Prentiss near the desk that was still waiting to be filled with a new coworker, and JJ could be seen through the glass of her office walls, talking animatedly with a few people. 

Oh. Morgan nodded to himself. That must be it. The people with JJ were obviously civilians. He could see a crying woman, a sour-faced man, and two teenagers in there. One of them must have been the omega he was sensing. Likely one of the teenagers, if the strength of the pheromones being emitted was anything to go by. Morgan allowed himself a long, steadying draw of his coffee as he went to his desk, aware that he’d have to spend at least part of his morning ignoring the distraction of the strangers in JJ’S office. So much for an easy Monday.

From the other side of the bullpen, Prentiss acknowledged him without breaking her conversation, and Morgan nodded back. The man at Prentiss’ side was even younger than he’d seemed at first glance, and Morgan assessed him as he booted up his computer. The kid was tall and (with the exception of his hair) clean-cut. He dressed older than he was, holding it all up with an astute posture that reminded Morgan somewhat of a bird. The ID clipped to his belt was bureau-issued, so Morgan figured him to be there picking Prentiss’ brain on a case. …Or perhaps something even a little more friendly. They were both drinking coffee from cups that’d been purchased outside the office. Emily always bought from Starbucks, but the emblem on their paper cups wasn’t from a chain shop. This detail which might have gone unnoticed by others, told the profiler that his colleague may have been entertaining a fling with a nerd. The kid was leaning towards her, gracing Prentiss with a dorkishly shy sort of grin as they spoke. Morgan swiveled back to his computer with a smirk. The kid wouldn’t be the first person to spend a coffee break trying to make headway with Emily. Chuckling softly to himself, Derek began checking his most recent emails.

 

\---


	2. New Coworker, New Case

JJ announced it while hurrying past Morgan’s desk: “We’ve got a case. Briefing room in five.” She didn’t stop to even look at him, let alone give him a sense of what it might be about. But if the rapid thud of her heels against the carpet as she scurried off was anything to go by, Derek figured he’d be needing his go bag by the end of the day. 

He took the chair closest to the door. Emily and Rossi were already in there, waiting for JJ and Hotch to show up. Rossi was writing in the margins of one of his books. He looked bored out of his mind—things in the office had been a little slow the past week, and the older agent had taken to reviewing his bestsellers. Prentiss looked a little more relaxed than usual, and even though three day weekends tended to have that effect on most of the members of the BAU, Morgan didn’t fail to notice that she’d changed her hair… and that she was attempting to hide a hickey behind her shirt collar. From across the table, Rossi gave a little wave of acknowledgement. “Happy Monday Morgan. Welcome back to the usual. Except now it looks like there might actually be some work to do.”

“Pft. You mean besides the mountain I’ve got waiting for me on my desk right now?” Morgan groaned good-naturedly. “You know JJ’s got some crazy hormonal teenagers in her office right now? I understand we’ve gotta bring civvies in sometimes but damn, is it distracting.”

Rossi looked like he understood what Morgan was hinting at. It was no secret to the team that their coworker was second gendered. “Omega?” he asked lightly.

“Yes.” Morgan cracked his neck. “You know there’s no pheromones at my house but me and Clooney. Peace and quiet. I guess was getting used to sleeping in.”

“Enjoy your time off a little too much?” Prentiss asked.

Morgan raised an eyebrow, considering how much he should tease the woman today. He bit his lip. “Not as much as you apparently.”

“Huh?” She looked confused.

“Bangs and a new coffee boy all in two days off?” he joked. When it became clear that Emily didn’t understand what he was referring to, Morgan clarified, “The sweater vest from IT that was chatting you up this morning?”

Emily’s confused frown melted with understanding, and she looked amused. “What makes you think he’s from I.T.?” 

“Science and Technology?” he guessed another bureau department instead. “I noticed that you didn’t say anything about him not being your new—ahem— ‘coffee boy’. Though I have to say I didn’t really peg you as the bookish type, not after Agent What’s-his-face from counterterrorism,” he teased.

Emily fought back a blush, looking almost affronted. “I didn’t… have coffee with Agent Marks. That was just—” 

A shot of espresso?” Morgan guessed, eyes crinkling at how easy it was to rile Prentiss before nine AM. He chuckled into another sip of his coffee. 

She seemed ready to issue a sharp retort, but at the last second seemed to change her mind, because she stopped arguing and instead smiled at Derek. Her eyes had switched focus to somewhere behind Morgan’s seat at the table. “Morgan,” she introduced smartly, “I’d like you to meet our new team member: Spencer Reid.”

Derek looked coolly over his shoulder, feeling a little bit dumbfounded to see the sweater vest from IT—also apparently known as Spencer—standing in the doorway to the briefing room. Immediately, he knew that this guy must be the omega he’d been sensing since entering the office, and his heart sunk. If pheromones were visible, Spencer would have been lit up like a Christmas tree just then. “Team member?” Morgan asked disbelievingly, “…He’s the replacement?” The kid couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty. He couldn’t have been older than twenty five, for Christ’s sake!

“Twenty three, actually,” the kid was saying, evidently in response to a prompt from Rossi and not from mysteriously being able to read Morgan’s mind. Rossi gaped at the age, and Prentiss nudged him to shut his jaw. He did. This made Spencer look a great deal less uncomfortable, and he bothered to step into the room a little farther. When Emily pushed out the next conference chair for him, he graciously sat down. “Thank you.” He seemed to fidget for a moment, before deciding to neatly fold his hands atop the table. Everyone sat still, and there was an awkward pause between old coworkers and new.

Morgan’s nostrils flared. He knew the whites of his eyes must have shrunk and that his head was tilting strangely as he scented the air. It was an automatic response that he couldn’t help, and one which he knew gave him away to others as Gen2. It was in his employment files but the bureau didn't require him to announce it to anyone. He’d had to ‘come out’ to the team once Rossi had figured it out three years in. Morgan knew without a doubt that Spencer Reid had known the moment he’d stepped foot in the room. The young man was sitting there across the table, making eye contact with everyone but Morgan. Eye contact was alpha behavior. Morgan stared him down. From under the table, he felt the tip of a woman’s shoe hit his shin. A glance up confirmed that it had been Prentiss, trying to make him snap out of it. 

Suddenly aware that he was probably posturing in all sorts of ways, Morgan tried to relax, settling his frame into his chair the way any SinGen person would. “…So kid,” Morgan finally broke-in, “Reid, right? What’s your background if you don’t mind me asking? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around headquarters.” He smirked, “though I don’t exactly go over to I.T. very often.” Morgan knew he was being a little standoffish—he could feel Emily’s ire from across the table—but he couldn’t help it. Something about this guy just… raised his hackles. He suddenly found himself not liking the idea of a new coworker. “Reid?” he asked again.

“It’s Dr. Reid, actually,” Spencer said firmly, apparently not yet ready to fall prey to the intimidation tactics of the most literal of alpha males in the FBI. “I prefer that over ‘Agent’.” He finally made eye contact with Morgan, and to his credit he didn’t waiver in his stare. But it was obviously forced; a show of bravado. He said, “I’m sure you understand, Agent Morgan.”

Morgan puffed out his chest. “It’s Supervisory Special Agent Morgan,” he corrected. “If you want to go by titles, that is. Around here we’re all just our names. Right Rossi?” He let his eyes bore into Spencer, strangely satisfied when the kid finally looked away, baring his neck just the slightest bit instead. Good, something deep in Morgan thought, you’re the boss. Let him know it. Still, the other part of Morgan’s mind, the part that was less ruled by instinct, thought that this was another clear sign that Spencer Reid, his new coworker, was omega. That was awfully bad news though, and Morgan frowned.

Hotch walked in, followed directly by JJ and Garcia. The latter sat herself down at the table next to Morgan, and he greeted her with an intimate murmur. JJ stood in front of them all and Hotch took the chair nearest the presentation screen. He nodded at JJ to begin. She clicked the projector on and images of two individuals flashed up onto the screen. There was a boy who looked to be about fifteen, and a girl who was maybe a few years older. Their features made it obvious that they were siblings, the near-black hue of their hair an exact match. It didn’t escape any of the agents assembled that the girl was clearly smiling and very pretty, while the boy looked more sedate and awkward.

“The most recent yearbook photos of Shawn and Emma Hastings, of Portland, Maine,” JJ explained. “They’ve been officially missing for forty eight hours, but the parents reported them missing four days ago.” 

As often was the case, Morgan was the first to take the lead and start asking questions. “Why didn’t they issue an amber alert after the first twenty four hours?”

JJ grimaced. “Local Police thought it might be a case of two teenage runaways. They told the family to wait.”

“Siblings usually only run away together when there’s a history of abuse in the family.” Morgan thought of the mother, father, and two teens he’d seen in JJ’s office earlier. “Was there any here?”

“It doesn’t appear so,” she said. “But the family situation is… sticky. Remarried mother, step-father and two step siblings—another teenage boy and girl. The family dynamic seems discordant.”

Morgan shrugged. “So how do we know they didn’t run away?”

JJ clicked over to another slide, this one of four new individuals, each with photos that had clearly been taken before and after death. “Because,” she countered, “they aren’t the first brother and sister to disappear from the Portland area.” Satisfied by this information, Morgan sat back in his chair to watch and JJ told them all, “These are our possible four additional victims. James and Kelly Copeland, and Noah and Taryn Write. Both pairs of siblings went missing within the last five months. Their bodies were discovered in nearby woods roughly six days after they’d been taken.”

“Ah... why did it take the police so long to make the connection?” Spencer asked. Morgan glared across the table at him, irrationally annoyed at the other man for having the nerve to participate in their discussion. 

“Victimology is all over the place,” JJ said. “The police didn’t connect the crimes until this third abduction.”

“For which we’re running short on time to help,” Hotch cut in. He let his eyes swipe over each member of the team. “I’ve already got Garcia combing over financials and other records to try and find any additional connections between the victims, but until she does, we’ve been invited in by the Portland P.D. on a four day old abduction. And if it is the same unsub, we know we’ve only got forty eight hours until he kills again.”

The unspoken directive for everyone to take their files and get ready was understood. Chairs rolled back across the carpet. Hotch told them all to get their go bags as he got up. Everybody stood from the table, including Spencer. He looked a little unsure though. “Agent Hotchner?” he asked the retreating man.

Aaron afforded him a rare look of patience, “Yes, Dr. Reid?” Morgan didn’t fail to notice how his boss was already addressing the newcomer by his requested title. “What is it?”

“I don’t have a go bag,” Spencer argued lightly. “I’m not officially supposed to start until Monday…” he trailed off, waiting for confirmation of this fact. Surely, he thought, they wouldn’t bring him along on this case? He wasn't ready. He didn't have any of his things. He hadn’t even been issued his new ID yet…

But Hotch was immediate in his response. “You’re starting early,” he informed. “Welcome to the team.” He clapped a hand onto Spencer’s shoulder, but quickly rescinded it when the younger agent shrunk at the contact. “Morgan and Rossi can help you get a go back together. We’re on the jet in thirty.” That last was addressed to the entire team, and Hotch hastened from the room with JJ. Spencer was left to stand awkwardly by Morgan and Rossi, both of whom looked at a loss as to what to say to him. Prentiss and Garcia watched the men with interested expressions. Morgan moved first, opting to simply ignore everyone and exit the room. Down the hallway he was quick to arrive at Hotch’s door, knocking only once before letting himself in. Hotch looked up from where he was pulling his own duffle out from the desk. “Morgan,” he said. “Is there a problem?” 

Morgan was aware that his push into the senior agent’s office was abrupt, but he didn’t care right then. There was currently only one thing on his mind. “This guy can’t be on the team, Hotch.”

Aaron paused, but then turned to more fully regard his coworker. He seemed to consider his words carefully, before saying, “And why is that?”

Morgan tensed. He knew what Hotch was expecting to hear. And he also knew that he was going to have to admit to the truth of why he didn’t want this kid, whom he’d known less than thirty minutes, working with them. Still, Morgan felt embarrassed of the whole situation. “Were you aware that he’s omega?” he asked lowly. “This kid?”

“I am aware,” Hotch said stiffly. The look he was giving Morgan said: and what of it? “And despite the obvious fact of his age, he goes by Dr. Reid, not ‘kid’.”

Morgan pulled back almost physically at the rebuttal. He realized then that his boss had expected him to take issue with the new hire for this very reason. He ruffled at the idea. “It’s a bad idea to bring him on,” Morgan said, trying to sound diplomatic. 

He's the best qualified candidate for the job. I brought him in from the field office in Richmond where, TEN MONTHS after graduating from the academy, he was heading up the division’s efforts at geographical profiling. He’s extensively versed on the intersects of psychology and criminology, and he’s an expert in statistics. He’ll be a valuable member for this team. In what possible way could it be a bad idea to bring him on?”

“You know I’m alpha. You know how hard it is for people like me to work around people like him. Especially in a setting like this, at a job like this. It’s inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?” Hotch screwed his face up. “That he should have the same opportunity as you to work for the FBI?”

Morgan grit his teeth. “He does work for the FBI. I’m not gonna stand around and argue about the merit of that, but he doesn’t need to be here.”

“There are other omegas in the bureau, Morgan.”

“Yes! In human resources! Not in the field. Not here,” he ground out. “And I know I’m not the only alpha in this division. How fair is it to have him around here every day, distracting us?! It’s not even safe.”

Hotch shook his head. “I know the situation this puts you in, Morgan, and I’m not trying to make life more difficult for you—”

“Then don’t! Hotch he can’t do this job,” Derek implored. “Omegas are too…”

“Too what?” 

Morgan glowered at his boss for making him say it out loud. “You KNOW what.” 

“What I know is that he has the right to be here.Ten years ago, it would’ve been you in the same position. Can't you remember how it was when you first started here? And now: people accept you.”

Morgan steeled his face not to wince at the very words he was saying, but said them anyway. "Maybe things have progressed a little too far."

Hotch frowned. Solidly. "I’m not about to disqualify him based solely on the fact that it makes you uncomfortable.”

Uncomfortable?! Morgan already had his mouth open to respond to that severe understatement, when JJ poked her head in the door. “Guys, wheels up in fifteen,” she said worriedly. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two agents, clearly sensing that an uncomfortable discussion was taking place. Slipping fully into the room, she quickly shut the door and asked them directly, “Is this about Agent Reid?”

“It’s Dr. Reid,” Morgan corrected snottily. Hotch gave him a look for the remark. 

“I was just informing Morgan a little more about Agent Reid’s new position in the BAU. He had some concerns.”

JJ and Morgan shared a knowing look, one which left Hotch feeling like he’d missed something. JJ spoke, “Did you tell him that I was the one who recommended Dr. Reid for the position?”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “What?” He looked at her incredulously, seeing that she was being serious. “Why would you do that?” he asked. Sensing Hotch’s disapproval of his tone, Morgan stepped closer to the woman to say privately, “JJ you know more than anyone else how impossible it’s going to be for me to work around that.”

JJ looked abashed. “I’ve known him a long time. Longer than you. He may be omega but he deserves a chance, Morgan. You can control yourself around him. Be a professional.”

Morgan glared. “You wouldn’t say that if you were alpha.”

“Yeah well…” JJ glanced over to Hotch to see him paying close attention, “I’m not.” Her words made Morgan clench his jaw as he considered her, and JJ eventually found that she had to avert her gaze away from the visible anger. Normally she wouldn’t allow herself to be intimidated by the man, but it was obvious to the both of them that she had taken a side in this matter, and it wasn’t Morgan’s. “I’m sorry,” she wound up saying despite herself. 

“Why? Like you said: you’re not alpha. This has no impact on your life. Why should you be sorry?” Morgan’s words, while quiet, were laced with disdain. He somehow sounded almost disappointed of JJ, and it made the third person in the room with them wonder if there was more to their relationship than he knew. 

“Is there something I need to know?” Hotch asked suspiciously from his stance near the desk. He’d never gotten the feeling that any of his agents were keeping secrets from him, but now he wasn’t so sure what to make of Morgan and JJ’s odd behavior. Were the two of them sleeping together? If so, Aaron was sure that he didn’t want to know about it. Both JJ and Derek shook their heads in answer to his question, looking embarrassed. “Well then I suggest the both of you hurry up and get ready,” Hotch said, avoiding further argument. “Morgan you and Rossi need to help Dr. Reid with his go bag. I suggest you do that now.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Morgan complained. “Does it look like we wear the same sized clothes?” Hotch’s continuing glare had Morgan sighing in resignation as he walked out of the office. He pushed rudely past JJ and left the both of them behind, feeling incredibly out of control of things and not liking it one bit. “Fine,” he muttered under his breath, spotting Spencer across the bullpen. The nerdly man was putzing around Agent Greenaway’s old desk, and it pained Morgan to think that it was now probably Reid’s desk. He’d have to sit there, everyday, not even twenty feet from a man who was likely going to be nothing but a distraction. Morgan sighed and walked over to help the kid figure out what to pack for the trip. 

\---

Morgan was the third team member to make it to the plane, after only Spencer and JJ. He tried not to frown overtly as he saw them already sitting together at the jet’s table. They seemed to have been in friendly conversation, but it whittled off as they were made aware of Morgan’s presence. Derek had to squash the feeling of annoyance that came at seeing JJ pay attention to Spencer. He took the couch across from them, making himself look both relaxed and bigger at the same time by resting one ankle atop the other knee and splaying his arms out across the back of the couch. Despite this, he radiated animosity and was not able not able to stop himself from saying, “Making friends already?” It sounded childish, even to his own ears, but Morgan forced himself to stare Reid down. He was, in a sense, asserting his dominance over Reid, and Morgan couldn’t help but enjoy the cheap thrill of satisfaction that came when the other agent displayed reciprocal behavior. “JJ’s our liaison; she’s very adept at offering a helping hand. It’s her job here.” It was a mean comment on Morgan’s part, and he could tell that JJ knew that it was partially aimed at her.

“I know Agent Jareau from the academy,” Spencer insisted, the strong will of his words not matching his shrinking posture. “We're friends.” He looked briefly at JJ, and the softness that he took on while acknowledging her was disconcerting to Morgan. “Good friends.”

‘Good friends’? What the hell did that mean? Morgan scoffed, but JJ’s direct gaze at him confirmed it. “Yeah,” Morgan said, “she told me she basically got you this job.” He could see that his words upset JJ, and immediately felt bad about it. What had gotten into him? Was it asshole day or something?

Spencer, however, looked pissed. He forced himself to make eye contact with Morgan—something that his instincts fought and which he was pleased to see had the older agent unnerved. Spencer was no idiot, he could clearly tell that it was upsetting the other Gen2 male that someone like him had been assigned to the team. Agent Morgan seemed to have no problem in being rudely direct to him, so Spencer decided that he would force himself to act the same. He had no intention of becoming the workplace bully’s bitch. “Look,” he said sharply, “I won’t say that I don’t know what your problem is, because I do know. But it’s your problem, and I’m not going to disappear just because you want me to.”

“Is that so?” Morgan challenged. 

“Yes. It is.” Reid sniffed. “I’ve had plenty of practice with guys like you; guys who think they can just intimidate their way out of anything. But it won’t work now. I earned this job myself, no one got it for me. If you had any idea how hard I had to fight to simply get the promotion that I deserved, you’d stop all your ridiculous posturing and—”

“And what?” Morgan interrupted in a hiss. “And pretend like it isn’t a distraction? Like I can’t smell the stink of omega all over this plane?”

Reid’s eyes burned steadily into his. “Yes.” 

Just then, Hotch, Rossi and Prentiss boarded the plane. Morgan immediately reigned himself in so as not to get in trouble for his behavior. Reid seemed to pull back into himself as well. JJ just looked relieved that more people had joined them. “Not everyone can so easily stand to be in a room with you,” Morgan said quietly, ensuring that only JJ and Spencer would hear him. He looked meaningfully at JJ. “Not all of us have that luxury.” JJ bit her lip, looking oddly guilty, and the conversation was cut short by Hotch and Rossi seating themselves at the table. Prentiss joined Morgan on the couch. 

“No more coffee jokes,” she warned him good-naturedly, knowing that he couldn’t possibly suspect her of having an intimate relationship with Reid now. “As far as you’re concerned, I drink my coffee alone. Got it, Mister?” Given Reid’s presence not six feet away, Morgan could only manage a stiff nod. With a shift of gears the plane began taxiing, and they all waited for the unmistakable feeling of takeoff. 

In the air twenty minutes later, Hotch had urged everyone into a discussion of the case. “Let’s go over the specifics of the crime again,” he told JJ. 

Nodding, she recited, “Three possibly related abductions in Portland in the last five months. Three sets of male and female siblings, abducted quietly from their homes, four of the six killed equally quietly after a little less than a week.”

“It’s hard to take two people at once,” Rossi pointed out. “Abductions like this take a great deal of organization, and usually force. Maybe we’re looking at more than one unsub? A team?”

Prentiss made a doubtful sound. “I don’t know if that’s likely. Police found no signs of forced entry or even of a struggle. Two unsubs means twice the opportunity to mess up; alert victims to their presence, leave traces behind. The crime scenes read as if our victim’s simply went willingly with their abductor."

“So this unsub had some way of coercing them to go,” JJ figured. “He could have been armed.”

Hotch shook his head. “Men are more likely to fight in that circumstance. We still would have seen a struggle in at least one of the abductions.”

“Okay… he could have had some way to subdue them. One at a time, out of sight of the other,” JJ guessed. 

Reid nodded. “Highly-organized abductions like this tend to either be professionally-contracted, or else the work of people known to the victims. There’s a high probability that our victims knew their abductor, trusted him even.”

“In which case it would be easier for him to isolate each victim.”

“We’re thinking it’s a him then?” Morgan questioned.

Reid looked somewhere at the level of Morgan’s neck as he confirmed, “Yes. Females rarely execute abductions of anyone over the age of thirteen. With women, the motivation is usually custodial in nature; the abduction of a young child they perceive to be theirs. Our victims are all between the ages of fourteen and twenty one. It’s more likely that the unsub saw the siblings as something that didn’t belong to him, but which he wanted.” 

Morgan wanted to grind out to Reid that he already knew the facts about female abductors, that he didn’t need an education in criminal behavior, but somehow managed to refrain. “Yeah but what for?” he challenged instead. “Why go through all this time and effort of taking two people, just to murder them six days later?”

Nobody answered, until Reid offered quietly, “He didn’t get what he wanted from them.” Morgan took a moment to consider just how proficient Reid seemed to be in this analysis. He looked for a reason to fault the other man for that, and found himself coming up blank.

Rossi was referencing one of the papers from his folder. “Cause of death is poisoning. All the recovered bodies had high levels of cyanide in their systems. We should have Garcia contact the M.E.’s office, tell them to go back over the reports to see if any lower levels of sedatives were overlooked. Our killer used chemicals to kill. He could have used them to abduct as well.”

“That would explain the lack of a struggle.”

Rossi nodded. “Reid, what’s the most common method of delivery for cyanide poisoning?”

“Food,” Reid immediately stated. Looking over at Rossi’s paper he added, “And given levels that high, it’s almost guaranteed that they would have gone quickly.” He looked pleasantly around at the team, stating, “Cyanide ingestion causes rapid loss of consciousness, followed by convulsions and rapid death. Given the unconsciousness, it would have actually been a very peaceful death.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Morgan snapped. “We don’t even know what the unsub did to these victims while he had them. Do you think their last six days of life were ‘peaceful’?” 

“Morgan, take it easy,” Hotch warned. The black man was practically baring his teeth at Reid, and Hotch knew that that level of animosity—whether it came from his Gen2 agents or the regular old SinGen ones—was not helpful on a case like this. “Dr. Reid’s observation is valid. The victims were found laid out together, peacefully and respectfully. That could be a sign of remorse. Our killer clearly had the capability to inflict damage on his victims but he chose a gentle death for them. This coupled with the fact that the victims weren’t tortured tells us a lot about his motivations.” Hotch sat there, waiting for Morgan to settle down and acknowledge the truth of his words.

Morgan focused on pulling himself together. He could feel Prentiss and Rossi staring at him and he felt incredibly embarrassed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know how he’d been acting since this morning. He was acting like a brute: forceful, domineering, aggressive. Typical alpha male behavior irrespective of the nature of the situation. Morgan prided himself on being an intelligent, level-headed person, and it unnerved him to think that he could give his coworkers any reason to view him as a stereotype. Omegas may have had more, but Alphas were traditionally associated with their own sets of stigmas, and Morgan had spent years distancing himself from such perceptions within the bureau. He stared at his hands, avoiding another angry look at Reid. One single omega admitted to the BAU and suddenly he was losing it. Morgan ground his teeth at how unfair it all was. “Fine,” he forced himself to contribute. “So our unsub clearly isn’t a sexual sadist. He cares for the victims. He empathizes with them.”

“I agree,” JJ ventured, generously taking the focus off of Morgan. “I’ve spoken with the Hastings family and the local PD is coordinating with the other two families to see if anyone in positions of authority—school teachers, counselors—had overlapping contact with the victims.”

Reid shifted in his seat, frowning at the papers in his hands. “I don’t think that’s the connection. They’re too different in age to have shared a teacher. I mean look at these victims,” he held up the photos of six people. “James and Kelly Copeland were fourteen and sixteen, white and fair. Shawn and Emma Hastings are the same age and race but they’re dark-haired. The Wright siblings were older. Both already in college and they were black. And the Wrights weren’t just brother and sister, they were twins.” Reid flipped through his pages, reading so rapidly that Morgan couldn’t help looking at him askance. 

Hotch was slowly agreeing as he scanned his own papers again. “It’s true. That’s why the local police didn’t connect the murders for so long. There’s nothing on the surface that is similar about our victims. Not even their living situations or family structure.”

“It’s highly unusual for an organized serial killer to lack a defined victimology,” Reid stated, sounding as if he were reading from a book. “Killers who are emotionally invested in their victims tend to have very specific criteria for who they select. Hair color, sex, age. Less than six percent deviate from a defined type.”

“So our killer doesn’t care about age or race,” Morgan agreed. “What does he care about? What do our victims have in common? The Copelands had other families living on the same street—families with sons and daughters. The Hastings are a blended family with two other teenagers—a boy and a girl. But they weren’t taken. There is something that made the unsub choose these, specific people.”

Everyone sat quietly, thinking. Emily was the first to shoot out, “They were obviously all siblings, brother and sister. That’s clearly important to our unsub. And in each pair the brother looks ah, um…” she hesitated to make her observation. “Well, less attractive,” she finally settled. “I mean look at the sisters. They all appear to be very pretty. They all look well-styled, big smiles. The brothers seem more…”

“Geeky?” JJ supplied with a smirk. 

“Introverted,” Emily corrected, chancing a look at Spencer. She didn’t want to offend her new coworker by judging awkward-looking teenage boys by their looks. It didn’t take an FBI profiler to figure out that in all likelihood, Reid had been just such an awkward teenager. “That’s a commonality,” she concluded.

Hotch nodded thoughtfully. “We should confirm this with the victims’ families, but it’s a start. What else?”

Morgan shrugged. “They’re all from middle class backgrounds.”

“They all live… lived, in or very near Portland,” Reid pointed out. “Our killer is likely from the area as well. He’d have to be very familiar with the area to successfully incapacitate and move pairs of adolescents without attracting attention.”

“Good,” Hotch was saying with finality. “This is a good start you guys. Given the time frame, we need to hit the ground running.” Just as he said this, the plane could be felt declining sharply in altitude. They’d be landing soon. “After we touch base with the police I want to walk the first two crime scenes. Rossi, Prentiss, you start with the Copeland house and I’ll take the Wright twins’ townhome.” Rossi nodded. “Morgan, Reid, you two look into the most recent abduction. Reid you look more closely into victimology. Morgan, you’re the unsub. Get into his mind.” Morgan nodded sternly, effectively hiding any displeasure he may have felt at being paired up with Reid so quickly. Hotch finished, “JJ I want you with them to interview the family. See if you gain any insight.”

JJ nodded her understanding, and soon the plane had landed and they were shuffling themselves to the waiting pair of SUVs. A representative from the local P.D. was there to greet them, and they were off right away, ready to begin work on a case that already promised to be quite challenging.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So not only does Morgan have a new, omega coworker to deal with, but now they're suddenly hopping on a new case (as those BAU guys tend to do). How will this pan out? I mean it can't be easy for Reid either! Let me know what you thought ;) Cheers.


	3. Investigations and Insults

Morgan toed the line of carpet that marked the threshold of Emma Hastings’ bedroom. The carpeting was very clean, unblemished. “It’s almost strange to walk a crime scene with so little evidence,” Morgan mused aloud. He supposed he must be talking to Reid, since he was the only other person in the room right then. JJ was downstairs talking with the parents. “Usually there’s blood, tissue, broken furniture… something. This is just a house.”

“They weren’t killed here,” Reid pointed out. “Just abducted.” 

Morgan glared. “They haven’t been killed at all."

“Yet.” 

Garcia had gotten in touch since they’d left the airport. The M.E. had overlooked some trace amounts of Propofol, along with injection sites near the victims’ hairlines. So far, the only other evidence of a non-resident entering the house at all was a vague shoe print in the dirt near the front porch. There were techs outside, casting it at that very moment.

Morgan pressed his lips together, looking around the bedroom again. It really looked like any typical teenage girl’s room. There was an eclectic mishmash of furniture and accessories that Morgan figured must be in vogue with kids these days. The walls had some posters. The bulletin board over the desk had snapshots of friends and awards from school and extracurricular activities. Reid was perusing these as Morgan opened the closet door to reveal a collection of stylish clothes. “She was well-dressed,” he said, thoughtfully fingering the wispy hem of a sundress. “She’s a pretty girl, seventeen. Maybe I watch her a little too much. Start having sexual thoughts about her. I want to make that a reality.”

“Plenty of teenage boys are like that,” Spencer pointed out. “They don’t kidnap the object of their affections. They certainly don’t kidnap their crush’s brothers.” 

“You’re right.” Morgan frowned. “I’m not just some lovesick kid. The crime is too sophisticated for that. I’m older. I know my obsession is inappropriate. But I’m not so old that I can’t spend time around this girl without anyone calling me out on it.” Morgan ran his hand thoughtfully over the top of the cluttered dresser. “I came into the house. She wasn’t afraid of me.”

Spencer glanced back over his shoulder, his features squinting at the odd way Morgan deemed to insert himself into the unsub’s shoes. In a way it was creepy but in a way it also made the dark man seem incredibly competent. Morgan had been walking slowly around the house ever since they’d gotten there, stepping lightly through the front door as if invited in, taking a beverage from the refrigerator as if it had been offered. Under his breath, he’d asked an invisible Emma Hastings if he could use the bathroom. And then he’d actually ducked in there! Not going so far as to actually flush the toilet and run the spigot, he’d then reemerged and continued his route, leading them both upstairs. Now he was back to standing in the middle of the room, muttering to himself as if he were the unsub and had just sedated a teenage girl. “An easy jab of a needle, and I would have had to catch her,” he muttered, ducking suddenly as if to hold a fainting damsel in his arms—arms which were large and toned, and showed off by the cut of Morgan’s tee-shirt. His crouching position as he laid the imaginary victim out on the floor was smooth and balanced, reflecting a graceful, subdued strength. 

Spencer found his attention too firmly focused on the other agent’s movements, on his body, and he frowned as a sudden feeling of attraction swept through him… No! He whipped his face back around to the bulletin board, telling himself that he was being stupid. He was just admiring another agent’s professional approach. That was all. Agent Morgan had been nothing but a complete dick to him from the very beginning of the day, and Spencer would be damned if he’d let his instincts take hold of his behavior the way that Morgan had. He ignored it in favor of the items tacked to the wall. Yes, he told himself firmly, focus on the case.

In pictures, Emma Hastings was rarely alone, and never without a broad smile. There were shots of her in the hallways at school, always at the forefront of a group of well adjusted-looking teenagers. There were pictures of her looking flirtatious with a boy or two boys at her side, pictures of her at soccer practice, at the beach, at parties making stupid faces with other girls. By all accounts that her room gave, Emma Hastings had been a popular, normal girl. 

Morgan finally came up behind him and asked him what he’d found. Spencer startled at the sudden proximity of their bodies. Trying very hard to ignore the low timber to Morgan’s voice, not to mention the heady influx of pheromones he was reading off of the other agent, Spencer said, “She’s pretty and popular, like Agent Prentiss said.”

“You know you can just call her Prentiss,” Morgan corrected. “In fact, she usually lets guys who buy her coffee call her Emily.”

“She’s not a typical prom queen though,” Spencer evaded, allowing himself a small step away from Morgan’s close proximity at his back. Even that small movement had a relieving impact. Spencer felt the uncontrollable tightening in his muscles, in his core, relax at the added distance. “Um, she got good grades, was involved in sports and academic clubs.” He peered at a photograph of the girl where she was playing games with an old woman at a table. “Volunteered with senior citizens. Not the typical leisure activity of a self-obsessed mean girl. Not someone who should have many enemies.”

“I didn’t kidnap her to get revenge on her,” Morgan stated. “We’ve already established that I care about her.”

“Could you stop talking like you’re the unsub?” Reid asked. “It’s unsettling.”

“Kid if you can’t deal with unsettling then you’d best get the hell out of the BAU now.”

Reid glared, insulted at being called ‘kid’ yet again. “We should examine her relationship with her brother,” he snapped. “Maybe she wasn’t as nice to him.”

They walked down the hall to the door of Shawn Hastings’ room. Morgan pushed the door in and they were faced with what appeared to be another, very normal teenager’s room. Morgan walked around a little, eyeing everything up as Reid did. “Ok, so I’ve got the sister contained in her room. I have to knock out the brother before I can get either of them out of the house.”

“I don’t think you’re very strong,” Reid observed, playing into Morgan’s use of the killer’s perspective for the first time.

“Oh, you don’t do you?” Morgan asked with a smirk, turning to flex within Reid’s line of sight. He chuckled when the younger agent visibly blushed. “Why not?”

“Why not what?” Reid asked with a hitch in his voice. 

Morgan snickered. “Why aren’t I very strong?”

Spencer gaped, having to remind himself for a second that they were talking about the unsub. “You never try and use force. You came prepared with sedatives. It’s as if you’re operating under the assumption that you can’t overpower another person. You at least view yourself as incapable.”

Morgan nodded, agreeing. “So I’m not intimidating, physically small for a guy. Maybe I lack confidence too.”

Reid nodded, examining the marked lack of friendly photos on Shawn’s walls. “Prentiss said the brothers seemed socially inept. Maybe the motivation isn’t so much a desire for the sister… maybe it’s that the unsub identifies with the misfit brothers. That’s why he takes them, too.”

“You think he’s acting through them?” Morgan asked. “Recreating some scenario?”

“It’s certainly possible.” Reid shrugged. “We should go find JJ and see what the parents had to say about their kids.”

Morgan nodded, for once feeling as if he was working well with Reid. “Okay.” They headed downstairs to do just that.

\---

JJ had given the parents a break from all of the difficult questioning by the time Reid and Morgan reappeared. “The mother’s too distraught to tell me much,” JJ informed them as they all convened in the house’s foyer. “But the step-father is a little more distanced. He was able to talk.”

“What did he have to say about the son’s personality?” Reid asked right away. “And his relationship with his sister?”

JJ canted her head. “He was an introvert like we thought. But happy. The parents and the other two children all reported that Shawn and Emma had a good relationship. Occasional teenage squabbles but nothing major. The dad said they were close for being two grades apart and having two separate social circles,” she confided. “But he thought that came from the blended family situation. Emma was going out of state for college soon and he said that Shawn was taking it pretty hard.”

Morgan nodded. “There was a Pennant for Cornell University in her room.”

“Smart girl,” JJ observed. In a moment she was being called into the next room by the Hastings, and she left them alone in the foyer with an apologetic smile. “We’re almost done I think,” she assured before disappearing from sight.

“So he’s a nerd, and his sister’s a social butterfly and she’s about to go out of state for school. That’s an abrupt cut in contact. That’s got to rattle an introverted little brother.”

“You’re assigning a trigger event to the victim,” Morgan criticized. “We need to be looking for what could have triggered the unsub.”

Reid was swift to counter him, and Morgan bristled at the assertive rebuttal. “No. If our unsub identified with the male victims, then victimology is twice as important. He shared one characteristic with the brothers, maybe he felt they had more in common. I have a strong feeling that Shawn was overly dependent on his sister.”

“You have a ‘feeling’?” Morgan asked. “We have no evidence of that.”

“I don’t know.” Spencer was frowning in somewhat of a froggish way. “My gut tells me that our unsub identified with that. Maybe he had abandonment issues and saw that reflected in Shawn?”

“‘Maybe’? ‘Your gut tells you’? You’re guessing!”

Spencer looked at him, reiterating, “I used to be like these kids. It’s easier for me to put myself in their mindsets.”

“Oh and you think I can’t,” Morgan challenged, disproportionally reactive to Reid’s words.

“Of course you can’t,” Reid said. “Just look at you. I find it very hard to believe that your adolescence bore any resemblance to that of the male victims’ or to the unsub’s.” 

“What, you think I was just a dumb jock?” 

Reid’s raised eyebrows told Morgan that he did think he’d been just a frivolous athlete, but he refrained from outright saying it. “I was like these boys. I know how lonely it can be. If the killer felt that way, maybe he had a deeper motive we’re not seeing yet. You shouldn’t be so reluctant to examine the emotional factors involved in this case,” Reid scolded. “What I’m saying fits the profile.”

“We don’t have a profile,” Morgan said. He wasn’t happy at the other man telling him off, at his assumption that he could do something more competently than Derek himself could. Most of all, he wasn’t happy that this nerdy young agent barely out of the academy was insinuating himself all over his turf, acting like the already-established member of the BAU that he wasn’t. It wasn’t rationality that had Morgan upset; it was his inner alpha, having a tantrum over the fact that an omega dared assert themself over him. Morgan hated that he felt this way, and he was busy stewing, busy blaming it all on Reid, as Hotch’s SUV could be seen parking out front of the house. “Why don’t you just take a step back and let us work. Stop making conclusions left and right. That’s how you fuck things up and make assumptions that are wrong.”

Reid ignored him, continuing to blather on. Eventually he said, “I just have this feeling that—”

Morgan exploded. “Stop saying that!”

“What?”

“’You have this feeling’, ‘your guts tells you’, ‘you were just like these guys’,” Morgan viscously finger quoted it all. “You have too many goddamned feelings! You know you’re exactly how I thought you’d be.”

Spencer’s countenance darkened, “And how is that?”

“It goes beyond not wanting to work around you,” Derek snapped. “Omegas shouldn’t be agents in the field.” Derek ignored the disbelieving sound Spencer gave at the highly prejudiced thing he had just said. “You let your personal experience rule your judgment. You’re letting your ‘feelings’ get in the way of this analysis. You don’t belong here.”

He’d puffed himself up as he got more and more into Reid’s space, but to his credit, Spencer didn’t back down. “You’re a Neanderthal,” Spencer spat. “I can’t believe people like you still exist.”

“What? Alphas?”

“Bigots.

“Hey! Just because I don’t want to be forced to spend each and every work day in close contact with a pheromonal basket case doesn’t mean I’m a bigot!”

“I am not a pheromonal basket case!” Reid hissed, stalking around to the other side of the foyer to evade Morgan’s domineering presence. The vibes coming off the darker agent had Spencer’s head reeling. “If I can put up with it then you can too.”

Morgan turned and followed him. “Where do you think the stereotype comes from? What’s going to happen when you go into heat, hm? Am I supposed to just ‘put up’ with that?” Morgan gave a sickening laugh. “Tell me: do you think they’d fire us, or give us worker’s comp if we accidentally raped each other in the office?”

Spencer looked utterly shocked at what Morgan had dared to say. “I… I have leave time for that.” He was going to continue stuttering, to try and offer up some sort of admonishment for Morgan’s extremely inappropriate words, but someone else beat him to it.

“Morgan, take a walk.”

It was Hotch. Somewhere in the last twenty seconds, he’d arrived in the front doorway and had heard the argument between his two agents. His face looked made of stone he was so angry. Next to him, a newly-arrived Emily looked confused, while JJ stood on the other side of the foyer, looking utterly pale with understanding. “Yeah,” Morgan was eventually able to grit out in agreement, pushing past Hotch and Prentiss at the door. “I’ll be in the car,” he told Hotch, trying to reign himself in to be at least that responsible. Hotch didn’t deign to answer him, and he left. 

\---

For a second all four agents simply stared across the foyer at each other, too embarrassed to know what to do. JJ ducked out first, on the pretense of needing to talk to the family one more time. Emily kind of lingered in the doorway, but when Hotch made to walk over to Reid, she slipped tactfully back out the front door. She couldn’t believe what Morgan had said!

Alone with Reid, Hotch shook his head. “It’s the first day,” he said wearily. 

“Do you think that makes it okay?” Spencer asked quietly. He was retreating into himself now, feeling exhausted from the energy spent forcing himself to stand up to an alpha as intimidating as Morgan. “What he said?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Hotch agreed sternly. “Agent Morgan spoke to you in a manner that was entirely unprofessional, not to mention crude.”

_Maybe crude, but isn’t it true?_ Spencer winced at his own train of thought, not liking the logical conclusion it could lead towards. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to work with him,” Spencer admitted. He knew that Hotch would assume that he meant it was hard for Morgan. But Reid also meant that it was hard for him. He hadn’t expected to react so strongly to an alpha on the job. He’d thought he could be professional, push those feelings aside. But some feelings were not voluntary. 

“I will talk to him,” Hotch was promising, unaware of Spencer’s internal struggle. “This will get better, I promise.”

Reid nodded, finding that he simply had to place faith in Agent Hotchner’s words. He tried to pull himself up straighter. He didn’t want to seem overly affected by Morgan’s insults. He didn’t want to seem weak at all. Hotch had warned Spencer from the very beginning that he’d be coming into a division with a few alphas, and that he’d be working closely with one. JJ had given him fair warning too. All he could do now was continue doing his best work on the case, and hope that with Hotch and the others’ help, things with Morgan would settle out. 

\---

Morgan looked up as Hotch approached the car, something about the section chief seemed a little less pissed off than it had been in the house, so Morgan decided to immediately offer an apology. “Hotch, I’m sorry,” he said as soon as the man was within earshot. “I didn’t control myself. I shouldn’t have said that to him.”

The door at Morgan’ side was open, and Hotch stood there looking dire. “You’ve got that right,” he admonished. “What the hell were you thinking? You know I should have you written up for this? I’ll have to if Dr. Reid insists. What you said to him was sexual harassment.”

“Oh come on, you know it wasn’t. It may have been rude but it was the truth!” Morgan gestured angrily towards the house. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t change who I am.”

“You can control it. You can refrain from threatening your new coworker with…” Aaron made a face, “with rape.”

Morgan shook his head, and he sounded tired. “I wasn’t threatening him Hotch. You know it’s a possibility. It’s happened.”

Hotch wasn’t hearing any of it. He distanced himself from Morgan. “Only in very bad circumstances Morgan. And not with people like you. You shouting at him about it in front of Prentiss and JJ does nothing to help the situation. I think you scared the hell out of both of them.” At Morgan’s hurt eye contact, he added, “They don’t understand.”

Morgan sighed at the thought of having freaked Emily out with his words. “JJ understands,” he said quietly. “Look Hotch I’m really sorry. I can keep a calm head but I’d like to have some distance for the day. I can go back to the station and start putting together—”

“No,” Hotch interrupted. “Dr. Reid’s already gone there himself.”

“He has?” 

Hotch nodded. “I think he was more shaken than he’d admit after your little episode. He asked to go back to police station to further analyze the victims’ geographical profiles. I said okay.”

Morgan felt guilty all of a sudden. Then he felt ridiculous for feeling guilty over someone who was causing such trouble in his work life. But still… he had really been awful to Reid all day long. He’d let his instincts get the better of him, and had put the other man in more than one awkward position that day. He’d probably humiliated Reid with his words in the foyer, and Derek felt ashamed that he’d said those things. It wasn’t as if he actually believed them…

He suddenly knew that he’d have to find a good time to privately apologize to Reid. He simply couldn’t allow himself to act so irresponsibly, to cause so much distress in another person without at least attempting to soothe the hurt. Morgan knew that it was typical for an alpha to feel responsible for people around him, even if some of those people were annoying, genius omega FBI agents. Now that Reid had gone and Derek had had time to clear his head, he really shouldn’t have been surprised at this sudden influx of guilt. As he sat in the car and watched Hotch walk back into the Hastings’ house, Morgan found himself wishing for the first time in his life, that he was a single-gendered person. 

 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter definitely delved a little more into the tensions that both Reid and Morgan are expecting to experience. I think Reid held his own pretty well while touring the house with Morgan. Too bad Morgan had to go and ruin it all by being such a jerk. I want to know what you thought though, so tell me!


	4. Connecting the Dots

Everyone regrouped at the police station. By then it was nearing three in the afternoon and fatigue was wearing on all of them. The chief of police had set them up in an available conference room with a fully-stocked sideboard, and Reid automatically flocked to it the moment that they convened their meeting. They compared notes on the crime scenes and interviews taken, working through the modus operandi, signature, and motive. It was clear by now that, despite wildly different victimology, these abduction/murders were connected. Portland had a serial killer. Reid remained on the periphery, listening to them converse.

“Each pair of siblings had _something_ that set the unsub off.”

“Maybe it’s about separation. You know: abandonment issues? He keeps them safe for six whole days, and he keeps them together. He isn’t trying to cause anguish by killing one or hurting one.”

“But what acts of abandonment could these kids have possibly committed? They were all still living with each other, for Christ’s sake!”

“Emma Hastings was about to leave for college…?”

“Yeah, but the Wright twins were grown and they leased a townhome together. They were closer than any siblings. What could they have done wrong?”

“They had a third roommate moving in soon. The sister’s boyfriend.”

“That’s a stretch to abandonment. But then again if the unsub sees himself in these young men, then he’s looking for any hint whatsoever of potential abandonment by the sisters.”

“He probably had a sister. Who moved away or died.”

“This is verging on utter speculation you guys. We need more.”

Reid walked back over to his own personal whiteboard that he’d been given, still stirring the final spoonful of sugar into his third cup of coffee. When he’d taken the excuse to return to the station in order to escape Morgan’s presence, the detectives there had seemed to pick up pretty quickly on the fact that he was different. Not in a second-gendered way—no, they hadn’t figured that out yet—but in an awkward genius way. They’d supplied him his whiteboard and maps and reference materials easily each time he’d asked. And after such a difficult time of it with Agent Morgan that whole morning, it’d been nice to just have people listen to him for once.

Now the sun was dipping down from mid-day, breaking through the blinds of the windows as Hotch debated the significance of this or that with Rossi, as Morgan talked through possible abduction scenarios with Prentiss. Reid tuned them out for the most part, squinting at the map he had drawn. It was crude—Reid never claimed to be an artist—but he could understand what the marks meant and that was all that mattered. 

“You got anything yet, pretty boy?” 

Reid glanced peevishly over his shoulder at Morgan. Was that his new name now? A demotion from ‘Kid’? He was surprised that the other agent had the gall to call him anything at all other than Dr. Reid. Reid bit his tongue to keep from issuing a snarky reply. Morgan would likely only get all alpha-y on him again if he did. “The unsub is a local, but not just that. He’s lived here most of his life. His knowledge of the area is too intimate to suggest a recent move. He knew where to leave the bodies so that they could be recovered by the families, but not recovered too soon. He’s probably not keeping them in his home. People in an area this densely populated would notice something. A more rural property is a possibility.”

“What else have you found?” Hotch asked, trying to put Reid in a role of command for a while. It seemed to help the agent’s nervous behavior when he could be the expert on things. Given the way that Morgan had rattled him earlier, Hotch figured that Reid could use a little reassurance. He didn’t want his entire team falling apart the second he took a leap and allowed an omega into the BAU. “Dr. Reid?” he prompted.

“Oh.” Spencer turned to the board, pointing to it as he spoke. “The unsub has a clearly-defined comfort zone. He only abducts from within the city limits of Portland. Though it would feasibly be easier for him to kidnap adolescents from some of the more affluent, neighboring suburbs, he avoids these. I think he’s going off of familiarity. He didn’t grow up in those well-to-do areas and so he doesn’t feel comfortable working from there.”

Morgan nodded his agreement. “If what you said about the unsub identifying with the victims is true, then that makes sense. These kids were all middle-class. Nobody was poor, but nobody was rich. Maybe our guy grew up in the same income bracket.”

Reid nodded. “Right.” Again referencing his own drawing, Reid elaborated, “If our unsub is in his twenties, maybe his late twenties, then his formative years were largely in the early and mid-eighties.” Reid used an orange marker to circle a portion of a blowup of the real city map that the cops had supplied him with. “This circle is his hunting grounds. We should figure out what these neighborhood populations were like during those years. That could help us figure out more about how he lived.”

Morgan felt impressed, but he didn’t let it show. The kid was leading the discussion like a miniature version of Hotch. Where had the twitching nerd gone? Put him in front of a whiteboard, apparently, and Spencer Reid became a whole different person. Morgan knew that he was spending too much energy thinking about Reid. He should be thinking about the case. But he couldn’t help it. Ever since his outburst at the other man in the Hastings’ home, Morgan had been keenly attuned to every reaction he might provoke—accidentally or purposefully—from Spencer. It didn’t help that the kid was sweating a little in the stuffy conference room, marking it with his scent. No one else could notice, but for Derek the heady smell was getting worse and worse. It made his head feel fuzzy, made it hard to focus on simple details of the case. He knew that Spencer had to be feeling it too. There was no way the other agent wasn’t fighting the urges just as hard as he was. Even the embarrassing ones. What the hell had Reid so hyped up? Morgan wondered. He would have thought that their hasty truce, made upon reunion at the station, would have eased the tension a little bit. But all Reid seemed to be doing was getting worse. Morgan had to wonder if it was the coffee.

\---

The Portland officers all crowded around the sides of the station’s large squad room. By the sheer number of bodies present, it was obvious that some officers who’d been off duty had been called in just to hear this briefing. The team stood gathered around Hotch as their unit chief prepared to deliver the profile. JJ and Morgan stood nearest Hotch, while Rossi was behind and Spencer had chosen to stand as far to the side of the room as possible. He had a handkerchief out as Prentiss approached him. She watched him blotting the perspiration from his brow. “Reid?” she asked quietly, “are you alright?” She eyed him with concern, noticing that he looked flush.

Reid gave a grimace of a smile, feeling his stomach curling up in knots. “Ah, not really,” he chuckled. “I feel kind of…” he stopped talking as he felt another shiver roll across his skin. Emily didn’t seem to notice.

“What?” she asked. “Kind of what?”

Spencer tucked his lips in, shaking his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” He forced a more convincing smile on. “Really. Let’s just focus on this profile, okay?” His tone made it clear that he wanted to get back to the matter at hand, so Prentiss stepped back, letting it go. Grateful that he could at least stand alone to try and concentrate on what they were supposed to be telling the assembled officers, Reid listened more intently as Hotch announced, 

“We’re looking for a man. White and in his mid to late twenties. He’s from the area, so not only does he know his way around, he blends in. He looks like you, talks like you, acts like you in public.”

Morgan stepped forward. “The man we’re looking for would not impress you if you saw him on the street. He has an average or slighter than average build. He lacks confidence in almost every area of his life, but most especially in social interactions. He has poor posture, hesitant speech, things like that. People who are around him long enough to talk would classify him a loner. A nerd.”

Next it was Rossi’s turn to speak. He said, “This man longs for attention that he does not get in his real life. When he abducts these siblings, he uses them to feel important, to feel loved.”

The team looked over to him and Reid swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing forcefully in his throat. “He identifies with the socially-inept males he takes. He doesn’t feel animosity towards his victims. He only kills them because his fantasies, whatever they are, are not attainable. Every time the people he places his hope in—his victims—fail him, he is driven to find another chance. A replacement.”

Hotch took over again, warning, “The most dangerous thing about him is that he seems normal. He appears trustworthy. His victims are not afraid to invite him into their homes. He incapacitates his victims with injections of barbiturates and kills by feeding them cyanide. Because of this, there is a strong possibility that whatever he does is medically-related. His methods may seem clinical, but he is heavily emotionally involved with each set of siblings that he takes. Every failure, every time he has to kill, is a crushing blow to him. That’s why he shows remorse at his dump sites. He is not a sexual sadist. Whatever he wants, he truly believes that he is going about getting it in the kindest way possible.”

“He will not stop,” Prentiss added gravely. “He’s from a middle-class family but he is smart, and educated. He’s gone to college for at least a year. He has a technical job, maybe medical, but he works alone for the most part. What he does affords him enough time and privacy to capture and keep these people in a secluded location. He may take them out of the city for the duration of their captivity.”

JJ stepped forward. “You should increase patrol activity in this quadrant of southeast Portland,” she indicated the highlighted circle of Reid’s map that’d been rolled out to display. “Seeing cops on the street will deter him, at least for a little while. Canvas roads leading out of the city. Look for larger vehicles; trucks, vans. He is driving one.”

One of the cops near the front leaned forward with a question. Hotch acknowledged him and the man asked, “We’ve got highways and interstates going six ways to Sunday here. This is where all the major trucker routes start or finish. How are we supposed to canvas that? How do we know he won’t just get the hell out of dodge and leave?” 

Morgan shared a look with Hotch before answering. He was the last BAU member to speak as he offered the cop a blunt reply of, “We don’t.”

\---

Hotch had his phone out, reading the information that had just been emailed to him. “Looks like the crime scene techs analyzed the shoeprint found outside of the latest victims’ house,” he told Emily, who sat beside him. Hotch frowned. “It’s a men’s size ten.”

“If it’s the unsub’s, he’s small like we thought.”

“What’s a Dansko?” Hotch asked, frowning at the word.

“Oh! It’s a brand of clog,” Emily supplied. “My hair stylist wears them. Doctors and chefs wear them, I think.”

“That’s another drop in the ‘medical professional’ bucket,” Rossi said. “This profile could pan out.”

Reid burst back into the conference room just as Morgan was dialing Garcia’s number. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, clearly excited. The bottle of water that he held in his hand sloshed with his movement. He’d been cut off from coffee an hour ago. 

Hotch and Prentiss shushed him with gestures, indicating Morgan on the phone and asking him gently, “What is it?”

Reid blushed. He hadn’t meant to act so hyper. “I found a point of intersection,” he told them, forcing his words to come out at a normal pace. He took a sip of the water to aid him in this goal. “Between the victims. I was looking at the lists the families provided of their itineraries for the two weeks before the abductions.”

“And?” Hotch asked eagerly.

“And they all have one thing, or rather one place in common,” he grinned and sipped from his water bottle again.

_“Garcia, good white witch of the world wide web. What magic do you desire?”_

Interrupted, Spencer squinted, wondering what the heck—

“Hey momma, it’s me,” Morgan murmured at the conference table.

_“Oh, FINALLY.”_ Penelope Garcia’s sensual voice filled the small room. Morgan had put her on speaker phone. _“Hellooo, my luscious chocolate demi-god.”_

Spencer nearly choked on his sip of water, before Rossi managed to reach out and hit him on the back. Morgan was speaking sultry right back over the phone. “Hey baby girl, had to hear your voice. We’re still waiting on those financials. Tell me you’ve got something good.”

_“Oh, sweet lips. I’ll always give it to you good.”_

“You know I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

Spencer felt a blush creep up his neck at the obvious innuendo. He was shocked to see the rest of the team sitting around placidly as if this were completely normal behavior. Reid looked askance at Morgan. Maybe for him it was. All Reid could think was that now he probably knew what Morgan sounded like when he talked dirty in bed. …Oh god! He didn’t need to think about that ever! Reid gulped more of his water, feeling his core tighten uncomfortably even as Penelope veered into more civil conversation,

_“I know a secret about where all three of your families have been spending thousands of dollars,”_ she confided haughtily. Spencer and the rest of the team imagined all sorts of possibilities: gambling, drugs, prostitutes… _“Ortho. dontia.”_ The one word was enunciated heavily. _“Ring a bell?”_

…No one said anything. 

“Yes!” Reid hopped forward, jarred out of his shock at having imagined Morgan’s bedroom voice. “Yes. That’s what I came in to tell you.”

_“Agent Reid?”_ Garcia asked over the line, _“Is that you, cutie pie?”_

Reid stammered. “Um. Yes?”

_“Well sweet cheeks: do you want to tell them or should I?”_ She waited, and Spencer couldn’t keep himself from saying,

“There’s a dental practice operating out of southeast Portland. All the victims had business there.”

Garcia made a sound of approval over the phone. _“He’s right. Looks like… braces for James Copeland, a job interview for Noah Wright, and for Miss Hastings…”_

“Wisdom teeth,” JJ said suddenly. Everyone stared at her. 

_“Yeah,”_ Penelope supplied over the line. _“I’ve got a payment of two hundred fifty dollars, x-rays ordered on Emma Hastings. How’d you know?”_

JJ shrugged, “The parents mentioned her having to come back her first college break for the surgery.”

“Anything else you can tell us?” Morgan asked. 

_“Just that they all had deliveries from that office scheduled. Retainer, paperwork, and x-ray prints. There’s no indication if the deliveries ever arrived but… couldn’t that be a way to get close to them?”_

“Yes,” Hotch was confirming, “it’s possible. Garcia I need you to find out if calls were made from the dental office to the victims just before the abductions.”

_“Way ahead of you. They all got calls. From the same phone in the building, too. That extension belongs to… Ah. An Elijah Forrester. ‘Assistant dental hygienist’.”_

Spencer’s eyes bugged out of his head a little. He was pretty sure it was illegal for Agent Garcia to have a way of knowing that information so quickly. 

“Text his address and the address of the dental office to my phone. Oh, and Garcia? Good work,” Hotch praised.

_“Well it’s your one connection. There’s zippo else that I can find between these kids,”_ Garcia all but apologized in her cheerful tone. _“Hope that pans out. Call me if you need me to weave any more of my clever spells, though with your new boy genius there I’m currently feeling a little less magical.”_

“Thanks momma, you’re always magical to me.” Morgan ended the call, and everyone looked around at each other. So they had one possible lead, and vague as it might be, it was still a connection between all three sets of victims. Each profiler knew they were all thinking the same thing: that if this panned out, then it meant that their unsub either worked at the dental office, or was a patient there. Clearly, they now had things to do. 

Hotch was quick in handing out the order. “Everybody to the cars.” They all moved to comply, and when it was just Hotch and Reid in the room he held the new agent back to tell him privately, “Garcia got the credit on that break, but she had tens of thousands of dollars of computers helping her figure out in hours what you worked out on your own in twenty minutes.”

Reid didn’t know what to say. So he said what he always wound up saying in way of an explanation: “I’m a genius.”

Hotch removed his staying hand from Spencer’s arm, again taking mental note that the other agent clearly found such casual contact uncomfortable. He tried to look warmly at the man instead. “Yes, you’re a genius. You’re also Gen2. And you’re also good at your job. It’s completely up to you to determine which, if any of those things, you want define yourself by.” Reid looked at him, stunned or maybe flattered, but either way with no useful response. In the end Hotch didn’t demand one from him. He simply walked out of the conference room assuming that Spencer would follow. And he did.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically all detective work, as some of the chapters will tend to be (smut comes later). But at least Morgan has chilled the fuck out and Hotch recognized Reid's competent work. Let's hear it for chapter four!


	5. Unsub, uncovered

Elijah Forrester’s apartment was located in an older building in southeast Portland. The BAU team stepped lightly about the dim interior as they examined the apartment’s contents. “He’s not at work,” Rossi announced to the room, having just concluded a phone call with the dental office where the man was employed. Eyeing the building’s super, who’d been the one to let them in, Rossi asked, “Do you know if there is anywhere else he would go?”

The super, a greying man with thick glasses, shrugged. “No, sorry. Mr. Forrester keeps pretty much to himself.”

“Has he ever mentioned any family in the area? And friends?”

Again, the super said no. “As long as the rent gets paid, I don’t pry.” Giving the searching team of FBI agents one last suspicious look, he rounded back out into the hallway. 

“Don’t know why he’s so annoyed,” Rossi said. “I told him we wouldn’t break anything.”

“Why is it that they’re always more concerned with that, than with the fact that their tenant is a serial killer?” Prentiss said dryly from the kitchen. 

Reid was seated in front of the unit’s old built-ins, picking through what few items had been deemed important enough to be kept there. Spencer had nearly gotten jealous when they’d walked into the apartment to the sight of the marvelous old bookcase. It went floor to ceiling along an entire side of the room; dark, burnished walnut that recessed back into the drywall. It was the sort of thing that just didn’t get built into apartments anymore. And their suspect had hardly placed twenty books on shelves that could have held a thousand. In Spencer’s opinion, it was a shameful waste.

Morgan had begun by picking through Forrester’s closet, his attention quickly drawn to the shoes he could see. “Hotch,” he called, “I’ve got men’s size eight shoes. …No clogs though.”

“He could be wearing them,” Reid posited distractedly from his spot in the next room. He looked up from what he was examining when Morgan approached to sit on the couch next to him. Reid tried to shift away without being obvious. Morgan was the last person he felt like being near. 

“What do you have?” Morgan asked. 

Reid shrugged as he continued reading the little book that was in his hands. “For a guy who has such a clear disinterest in literature, he sure does quote it enough. We were right about him being educated.” Elijah Forrester kept multiple journals. Given that Reid was the only team member who read at a pace of 20,000 words per minute, he’d been tasked with scanning through them for anything suspect. He was grateful that at least it was something he could do while sitting down. But now Morgan was sitting down next to him and ruining his respite. Reid had been feeling increasingly awful for the better part of the afternoon and he didn’t need anyone noticing. Trying to clear his head, he said, “I believe that Elijah is our unsub, but he doesn’t mention the abductions in here.”

“Well what _do_ the journals mention?” Morgan asked impatiently. 

Reid gave him a warning raise of the eyebrow, but said nothing about his tone. “The main topic in most of these entries is his sister,” he revealed, “Caroline.” The look on Morgan’s face was surprised, and Reid savored the reaction. “He’s obsessed with her. I think he’s in love with her.”

“Let me see.” Morgan took the little book and Reid let him, not wanting their fingers to touch. Flipping over a few of the pages, Derek read until he came upon a quote. He read aloud, _“I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze.”_ He looked questioningly at Reid, assuming that the other man had already read it. “What’s it mean?”

Spencer was pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the light-headed feeling that’d been plaguing him. Morgan’s close proximity wasn’t helping, so he stood up to pretend to glance over the other items on the bookshelf. He answered, “Um. It’s ah, a quote from _A Feast for Crows_ , by George R. R. Martin. It’s referencing the relationship between two characters in the book: Cersei and Jamie Lannister.”

“What meaning could that have for him?” 

“A lot,” Reid impressed. “If, like the book’s characters, he was in an incestuous relationship with his sister.”

Morgan’s heart sunk. “Oh god.”

Reid nodded grimly. “It’s unclear if actual acts of incest ever took place or if it’s just a fantasy for him, but Elijah references a happier time; a time where he and his sister _‘had the world all to themselves, occupied by no other’_ , as he puts it. The quote from the book suggests that he longs for intimacy with his sister, but that he also feels distanced from Caroline.” Reid looked meaningfully at Morgan, “I think we know why he abducts pairs of siblings now.”

“What? Do we think he’s living vicariously through them? The siblings he kidnapped were incestuous too?” Morgan felt slightly skeeved by this newest turn “Three pairs of incestual brothers and sisters in one city? Is that likely? How would he find them?”

Morgan had asked a lot of questions in only a few seconds. Reid just shrugged. “The internet I think,” he said in way of answering Morgan’s last query. “Even the most ostracized of communities can find a home in cyberspace. A message board or a forum could have been where he identified the relationships.”

“But all the victims had connections at his workplace,” Morgan wondered. “What about that?”

Again, Reid shrugged. “I really don’t know.” 

Morgan sighed, not liking the possibilities he could conjure up in his head. Reid was looking increasingly agitated as the afternoon wore on. Not that Morgan couldn’t understand that though, given the particulars of this case. Incest was something that the team had come across before, but it was infrequent enough to still warrant their unaccustomed discomfort. Derek found himself swallowing hard. “We’d better tell Hotch,” he murmured, getting up.

They went into the apartment’s bedroom, prepared to announce to their team leader the unsettling facts they’d discovered. As soon as they stepped through the doorframe that separated Elijah Forrester’s bedroom from his kitchen, however, they figured out that they really didn’t have to announce anything. JJ and Prentiss were crouched on the floor near the room’s set of dressers, boxes of photographs spread around them. Where anyone else surely would have looked sick, the BAU women appeared utterly Solemn. Hotch was stone-faced by the bedroom window, making a quiet call on his cell phone. 

Reid let his eyes track over the shots that had been hastily discovered. At first, he just felt relieved to see that hardly any of them were pornographic in nature. That sense of relief slowly bled away, however, as he took in the details of what he could see. Somewhere at his side, he heard Morgan curse.

Older photographs that had clearly been taken with polaroids and analog cameras were solely shots of their suspect, Elijah, with his sister Caroline. A few appeared to be photos taken in their childhood, but the large majority of the old film was what Eli had obviously captured on film for himself in their adolescence. Caroline Forrester was—or at least had been—a pretty, long-limbed girl with bright blue eyes, wavy chestnut hair, and an infectious smile; when it could be seen, that was. Not all of the photos showed her face. Some were just a shot of her shadowed or blurred profile, or maybe a length of her bared leg that was just this side of inappropriate for a brother to have taken, let alone kept the photo. Either way, the innocence of the photos was beguiling—surface deep. It was clear to every profiler present that even all those years ago, the unsub had had a concerning obsession with his sister. Was it returned? They all wondered.

It was the newer photographs that were harder to take. It was an even mix of shots of Caroline (ones to which she was obviously oblivious to being in), and shots of the six victims. “…Maybe this will help us figure out where he’s keeping them,” JJ said weakly. Reid swallowed and chanced a glance at Morgan, needing to feel some sense of reassurance just then and not knowing where else to look. Morgan was the closest alpha, and Spencer found himself longing to press himself closer to Morgan’s body, to bury his face somewhere near the other man’s pulse point. Omegas sought comfort and alphas gave it; it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about. It was just a fact, a need, the same as eating was. And by the way the darker man looked at him in that moment, Reid knew that he understood. They both resisted the base urge to reach out and brush fingers.

“Right.” Hotch pulled his phone away from his ear, ending the call and looking sharply at the team. Rossi had just poked his head through the door and was still staring between Reid and Morgan’s shoulders, taking in the sight of the multitude of photographs as Hotch gave out his orders. “Garcia is hot on his phone and credit cards. If he uses either of them we’ll know.”

“Hotch,” Rossi said, only just managing to look away from the floor. “If and when the time comes to apprehend this guy, we need to be careful. His obsession is…” he trailed off, thinking, before deciding on, “It’s his whole identity.”

Aaron nodded and told them, “We’re not there yet. There’s still work to do. Prentiss, JJ, you two stay here and keep working through this evidence. There could be something hidden away that will get us a break today, and if not, we’ll need copies of it all to review at the station.”

Prentiss nodded her assent, followed shortly by a distracted-looking JJ. She was watching the near-invisible interaction going on between Morgan and Reid. No one else had noticed, but JJ’s gaze brought Hotch’s attention to the pair next. “Morgan,” he said. 

Morgan seemed to snap out of something at the verbal cue, and he pulled himself away from where he’d been inching closer to Reid. _Had_ he been inching closer? How had that happened? Morgan focused his senses on his boss’ attention, ignoring others. “Yeah,” he said, all business. “What’s next?”

“Take Reid with you and go see if Caroline Forrester knows how her brother’s been spending his free time.”

Morgan paused, but he avoided the urge to look automatically at Reid. “Okay,” he said, trying to sound calm to let his boss know that he’d taken the day in stride and could, in fact, handle working with the new guy. “We’re already in the car. Just text me the address.” 

Hotch nodded, more than likely already in possession of said address through a bit of Garcia’s magical resources. “Oh, and Morgan,” he added, as the two of them were already turning to leave, “let Dr. Reid take point on questioning.”

Morgan wanted to frown, but not for the reasons Hotch might have thought. If he’d allowed himself one, a frown would have come at the natural conflict between the order to allow Spencer Reid into the dominant role of their investigation, and his own instinctual urge to take control and—in essence—protect the younger agent when they were both so tightly wound from the turns this case was rapidly taking. Stress wasn’t unusual or even unmanageable for Morgan but it did tend to bring out his more Gen2 characteristics. It was only that, up until now, that fact had never mattered before. But now it did. It mattered because Reid was on the team. It mattered because Hotch’s directive was making him want to frown and Hotch would read it as stubbornness, jealously even. So in the end, for the specific things that Hotch would have thought of him, Morgan kept a straight face. In another moment he and Reid were headed out the apartment door as Hotch and Rossi could be heard discussing their destination of the dental office.

\---

“The sister lives in Scarborough,” Reid read from his phone. Hotch had texted him the address, as it was Morgan who was driving. “It’s about ten minutes from here.”

They were on the main drag out of Portland, and Morgan instructed him to key it into the car’s GPS. Once he’d done that, they sat still with only the sound of surrounding traffic. Morgan focused on driving, and Spencer focused on doing his best to distract himself with something out of the window as they got on the highway. It was only once they’d reached the slow pace of suburban streets that Morgan chanced saying anything. “Um, Spencer—I mean Agent Reid.” He’d shocked himself by using the guy’s first name and blushed. Morgan was glad he was half-black. He was pretty sure other people couldn’t tell when his face heated from embarrassment or… other things. “Reid,” he tried again, “I know we had a… thing, back there. But we can’t let it get in the way of this case.”

Reid scoffed. If by ‘thing,’ Morgan meant the two of them suddenly, inexplicably wanting to cling to each other in a room full of disturbing evidence, then yeah, they’d had a ‘thing’. Instead of voicing this though, Reid said, “I’m not the one who’s let anything get in the way of anything.” If he’d been feeling more solid, he’d have delivered the words with eye contact. As it was however, he was feeling pretty paper-thin, and he avoided looking at the other agent. That wasn’t going to help anything. Reid shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the tight feeling in his core growing. “Why did Hotch assign us together?” he asked.

Morgan flicked the blinker on and took a turn onto the next street. “He wants to make sure I can work with you.”

“Not the other way around?” Reid checked. If he’d been trying to ask the question nonchalantly, he’d failed.

Morgan slowed to a stop at the curb near the sister’s address. It was one in a row of very decent-looking townhomes. Putting the car in park, he turned in his seat to fully-assess his coworker for the first time since they’d left the rest of the team. While that morning Reid had seemed composed, now he seemed borderline disheveled. “Reid, are you alright?” he asked, not sure that he wanted or needed to know. They were supposed to be acting professional, after all. But the other man was sitting there in his seat, shrinking further into himself and avoiding eye contact like the plague. Morgan could smell the kid’s sweat, and he could see the way his eyes glossed over every once and awhile. “Because you smell. A lot.”

It wasn’t meant to be an insult, and Morgan knew right away the Reid didn’t take it as one. As Gen2s, their sense of smell was their most-developed difference from regular people. It dictated social behavior to a degree that they knew most SinGens were ignorant of. And that was fine, as long as they kept their decorum. As long as they kept themselves acting normally in their day to day lives. But Reid reeked—not of body odor but of omega pheromones. And if the pheromones Reid was giving off in increasingly alarming waves kept on, Morgan didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep himself… presentable. He’d adjusted himself twice already since they’d gotten in the SUV together. This was more than what was normal for a man like Spencer, Derek knew. It was almost as if...   
“Reid… are you—”

“NO.” Reid cut him off sharply, looking somewhere between the juncture of Morgan’s neck and shoulder as he blindly reached for the door handle. It was his best attempt at eye contact and would have to do if he wanted to try and sound firm. “Just… no.” He got out of the car in a hurry, and Morgan had nothing to do but to follow.

\---

“Can I help you?”

Caroline Forrester didn’t look too much different from when she was sixteen. Same chestnut waves, same bright blue eyes, just an older version. Reid immediately thought that the woman had brilliant blue eyes just like JJ did, then he had to force his brain to stomp out the inappropriate comparison. The only reason he knew anything about what Caroline had looked like at sixteen was because of the pictures her brother had kept…

“We’re with the FBI, Ma’am,” Morgan spoke up at Reid’s back when it seemed that he wasn’t going to answer the lady. “We’re investigating a series of disappearances in the area and we’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s okay.”

Like most people whose doorsteps they wound up on, the woman in front of them looked utterly taken-aback. For a second she even looked suspicious, as if the two strange men on her porch might be lying to her in the commission of some crime. “Can I see your badges?” she asked timidly. Spencer had his out of his back pocket first, letting his wallet sit open for her to read. Caroline mouthed his name and then looked up at Reid in a whole new light, as if he’d just revealed that he was secretly a demi-god. “Spencer Reid,” she said, beginning to smile flirtatiously. “Well it’s not every day I get a real, live FBI agent coming to my door.” Her eyes tracked down to the holster and gun held prominently at Reid’s hip. She bit the corner of her lip needlessly. “What exactly can I do to help you with… your investigation?”

Morgan raised his eyebrows while Reid answered a little too matter-of-factly, “We’d like to ask you some questions about your brother, Elijah. May we come in?”

Caroline’s eyes widened in surprise. “Eli? What’s he got to do with your investigation?” Suddenly, she gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god,” she squeaked. “Is he okay? Is he hurt?”

While Morgan was about to roll his eyes at her hysterics, Reid used a soothing gesture with his hands, calming her. “Hey, no no no. Eli is not hurt.” Derek couldn’t see from where he was standing, but from the way that Caroline was blinking fast and focused at Reid, he could tell that the other man was making some sort of facial indication of understanding. 

“Well then what?” she nearly whined.

Reid sighed. “It would really help us if you’d sit down and talk with us for a few minutes. Is that okay?” His voice sounded so concerned and sweet, and Morgan knew that he was doing it on purpose; projecting a sense of calm and caring so that the woman would trust him, maybe open up. Apparently it worked, too, because she was soon nodding, 

“Okay.” She stepped back and turned to head into the house. 

Morgan blinked in surprise. Without even trying, Reid had managed to quickly calm the woman down, something that Morgan often had trouble doing with subjects. Not only that, but he’d also managed to gain immediate access to the woman’s house and, ostensibly, an interview as well. It was awfully fast luck for a brand new member of the BAU, and it made Derek feel a swipe of jealousy. How could the kid be so intuitive when he hadn’t even picked up on the fact that the woman had been flirting with him? To make himself feel better, Morgan reassured himself that it didn’t matter if Reid was more adept at gaining the trust of subjects in the field, because after all: if it had been him, he’d have used the attraction to his advantage. Reid went to follow Caroline into her house, but Morgan t’sked at him to gain his attention. “Reid,” he admonished. “She was giving you the eye. Why didn’t you go with that?”

Spencer looked confused. _The eye?_ “Huh?” _What eye?_ “I don’t get it.”

“Caroline Forrester. She’s got a thing for cops,” Morgan stated. “She was flirting with you. You should have known to exploit that.”

“Exploit _what?_ ” 

Morgan did actually roll his eyes then. “Her interest in you, kid!” At Reid’s blank stare he snickered. “Oh come on. Even you had to notice that. And we’d definitely get more answers from that angle than the ‘care and share’ tactic you’re taking.” Morgan wasn’t actually so sure of that but he wasn’t going to admit it. “You have to notice these things about people. She was totally into you.”

Reid didn’t even get that Morgan was trying to teach him something about interrogation. Halfway between some serious investigative work and the edge of a pheromonal breakdown, he just laughed oddly like Derek had said the funniest and stupidest thing. “Come on Morgan,” he said disbelievingly. “You’re wrong. People aren’t ‘into me’.” He said the last as if were simply a fact, not some derogatory jab at himself. He turned and went into the house. 

Morgan sighed and drew himself forward to follow after him. Oh, he thought privately, how wrong that pretty boy was. Morgan could have named at least a dozen alphas he knew who’d have been glad to ‘be into’ Spencer Reid. The kid may have been awkward as hell but he wasn’t bad looking. Not bad at all really… That errant line of thought had Morgan adjusting himself again as he joined his team member in the house.

\---

Caroline was perched on her couch. When she offered Morgan and Reid seats, Reid made sure to snag the arm chair right by her side. Exempting the couch and armchairs, however, most of the house seemed to have been stripped of furniture. Large and small cardboard boxes littered every available surface, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that a move was currently underway. Caroline angled herself towards Reid more than Morgan, giving him her attention. Sitting catty corner to one another as they were, they almost looked cozy. Almost friendly. Morgan held back, prepared to see where Reid would take this. Hotch had said to let Reid take point, after all. 

Caroline spoke first. “What do you want to know?” she asked. “I’m not really the best person to tell you about Elijah. He doesn’t stop by too much these days.” Something about her demeanor seemed newly nervous, as if now that she was actually going to have to answer questions about her brother, she was worried.

Reid leaned in just the slightest bit, eyes comforting. “We thought your brother might have had contact with some people who are missing. He might have interacted with them at the dental office where he works.”

“Oh.” Caroline blinked. “Well I don’t know his work schedule. He’s never mentioned any missing coworkers. We’re really not that close,” she downright insisted.

Spencer and Morgan both noted the way in which she talked about her brother in the present tense, and how she automatically assumed that her brother’s contact with any supposed victims was incidental. “It’s not his coworkers that’ve gone missing,” Morgan supplied coldly, deciding to play bad cop to Spencer’s good cop. “More like his patients. We have a record of him making phone calls to at least three different victims before they disappeared.”

“Jesus Morgan,” Spencer hissed. He purposefully shot Morgan a glare, as if the darker agent had somehow interfered with his plan to make nice. Morgan knew what he was doing though; he was establishing a basis of trust between himself and Caroline, cemented by a common antagonist: Morgan. It was good insight. The next words from Reid’s mouth were, “Regardless of why, when coincidences like this turn up we have to follow up on it for posterity.”

“You don’t suspect _him_ of kidnapping someone, do you?” 

She was ready to be scandalized so Reid avoided a direct answer by saying, “Sometimes perfectly innocent people become witness to things that they don’t even realize—until they’re prompted. If there’s even a slight chance that your brother knows something about these disappearances, then it really is crucial that we locate him so that we can ask him some questions. When was the last time you had contact with your brother?”

“Um… two, no three weeks ago,” she supplied hesitantly. “He came by the house to see me, but we were having dinner with some friends and well,” she shrugged. “I asked him to come back another time. He didn’t take that very well.”

“Why not introduce him to your friends?” Morgan asked. “Are you embarrassed of him?”

“No!” She looked at Morgan, annoyed. “I love Eli. He’s just…” she looked guiltily down at her lap. “Dennis and he have never really gotten along well and with the move it’s just been tense. …Dennis is my boyfriend,” she hastily explained. “Well, _fiancé_ now I guess. He proposed six months ago.”

“You moving?” Morgan asked the obvious, eyeing the room.

“Yes. Dennis got a job in South Carolina so we’ve been slowly moving our stuff down there to a rental. It’s going to be great when it’s finished.”

“What does your brother think of that? Of you moving so far away?” Morgan’s question seemed to stall Caroline. Not because she didn’t know the answer—she did—but rather because she obviously didn’t want to admit how upset her sibling was about the move. “He isn’t happy,” she finally said quietly, embarrassed. 

“He’s a little different from other people, isn’t he?” Spencer offered, sounding sympathetic. Caroline seemed to latch right onto even the mere suggestion of an understanding ear. 

“Yes. I mean he’s great. Really smart, kind… It’s just that he doesn’t really get on well with too many people.”

Reid nodded. “He was a loner is school right? Never gave anyone any trouble, but nobody really knew how to appreciate him for who he was. No one understood him, except you.” Reid’s eyes were kind on the woman as she seemed to light up at the fact that he got it. 

“ _Yes_ ,” she impressed. “That’s exactly right.” Looking as if she might share a secret with Reid, she leaned forward a little and said, “We grew up pretty much just the two of us. Our dad was a trucker, so he was always away on long trips.”

“What about your mom?” Morgan asked. 

“She died when we were little.”

“So you spent what? Entire weeks on your own as kids?” Morgan tried to empathize like Reid was doing. “That couldn’t have been easy.” Unfortunately, he could tell from Caroline’s reaction that his words didn’t quite have the same soothing effect as Reid’s did.

“We were too young to be alone the way we were, but it got easier. I figured out how to cook a couple of things on the stove, how to use the laundry machine. I looked after Eli.”

“How about when you got a little older?” Morgan asked. “How did you ‘look out’ for him then?”

“Excuse me?” She squinted at Morgan, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you’re asking. I was a good sister. I TOOK CARE of him.”

“You were his protector,” Reid supplied, trying to show her that he was on her side. “I know what it’s like. My mother was often depressed when I was a kid. I had to look after her, too. It’s hard, but you have to be that for them.”

Caroline grimaced through a sad smile. She scooted closer to Reid. “Yeah. He still sees me that way. I know he does. We got um, separated when we were in high school, and it’s been harder for him than it has been for me. I really worry for him sometimes.”

“I worry for my mom.” Reid found that, though it was annoying, his senses being so piqued with arousal had also made it easier for him to read this SinGen woman’s signals. He felt as if he could nearly hear what she was feeling, and knew exactly how to respond. “It’s normal, to worry,” he assured her.

“I worry he’s just sitting there in his apartment, missing life, you know?” She bit her lip. “Eli… never really had too many interests.”

“He has one,” Morgan said, staring pointedly. 

Caroline blushed, clearly imagining the inference to be herself. “What are you saying?” 

“Saying?” Morgan shrugged, “Nothing. Just that I don’t see how you qhaven’t heard from him in so long, when by your own account, you seem to be the only person who your brother knows intimately.”

“What?!” The word ‘intimately’ had triggered her reaction. Caroline calmed her tone when she realized how alarmed it was, rectifying, “I _told_ you: we aren’t that close anymore.”

“Why do you sound so defensive?” Morgan asked bluntly, making the woman squirm. “Why would we care how close you are to your brother?”

Caroline’s lips parted, but they stayed that way, moving slightly like some sort of frightened fish. Reid cleared his throat loudly. “Agent Morgan can you please wait in the next room for me?” he asked pointedly. 

“What?” Morgan made a show of scowling. The scowl helped to tune out the amazement he felt at how well he and Reid were playing this script out together. It was as if they knew just what the other was thinking, where he was going next without having to say it. It was seamless. Continuing his attitude, Morgan puffed air despondently from between his teeth. “You always pull this shit. We’re supposed to be working a case, not making friends.” He stalked angrily from the room, but of course hovered just beyond eyesight, listening.

“I’m sorry for that,” Reid said embarrassedly once Morgan was out of the room. “He usually saves outbursts like that for the car ride home.” He looked down at his lap, trying to appear small and shaky. It wasn’t hard to do.

“He treats you like that all the time?” 

“I’m used to it,” he excused, voice mild. If Caroline could see him as a victim like her brother, she would naturally want to help him. “Really. It’s no big deal.”

“It’s not okay.” 

There was a new fierceness in Caroline’s eyes. She looked as if she wanted to reach out to Reid and protect him. Comfort him. Reid knew it was his opening and he hoped Morgan was still listening in the hallway as he chanced, “You know: I understand you and Eli’s relationship. I wasn’t surprised when we went in his apartment.”

“You went to his apartment?!”

Reid nodded. “Yes. It’s very clear that he loves you Caroline. You’re the center of his world.” Caroline blushed, and Spencer reassured her, “It shows that you took good care of him when you were kids. He trusts you.”

“Not lately,” she divulged. “I wasn’t lying when I said we aren’t that close. Not anymore at least.”

“Can I ask you about something personal?” Spencer tried gently. She nodded and he said, “Your brother had… a lot of pictures of you at home.”

Caroline tensed. “What… what sort of pictures?” Spencer supposed she didn’t even stop to consider why two FBI agents would have been combing through her brother’s apartment. “Agent Reid—Spencer?” she asked again. “What pictures did he have?”

He gave her a knowing look. “I think you know already.”

“I didn’t—I don’t know. No.” She shook her head vigorously, face flushed nearly as badly as Spencer’s. “I haven’t… spent time with him in a while.” 

Reid coaxed, “But you did before, when the two of you were young. All those times your dad was away? It was lonely and frightening and you only had each other. Caroline I know that you know the pictures we found told a story; a story where you were very close with Eli. Closer than other brothers and sisters are. Too close.”

Caroline worried her hands together, fingers twisting almost viciously in her anguish. “Please,” she whispered, looking wretched. “Please don’t.”

Spencer reached out to touch her hands, stopping her from wringing them so, while at the same time comforting her. “I’m not here to judge you. Or him. You were a good sister, Caroline. I can see that. What Elijah turned it into wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to be ashamed.” Despite his words, she looked very ashamed. Her lips trembled, but she didn’t pull away from Reid. “When did it start?” he asked gently.

She shrugged hopelessly. “It didn’t ‘start’. It just… happened. Until we were in high school. Dad died and we got placed in foster care.”

Reid understood what she didn’t say. Out of necessity, siblings were often split up in the foster system. What was usually regarded as one of the more tragic pitfalls of the system might have wound up being a blessing for this woman. “Did you tell anybody about the incest?” he asked, finally saying it aloud.

She cringed at the word but shook her head in the negative. “How could I? I was SIXTEEN. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I was just glad it was over.” She looked up guiltily at Spencer as if he’d judge her for admitting, “I _let_ them separate us. I knew it wasn’t good for him but I… I let them.”

“It’s okay,” Reid comforted. “No one would have blamed you.”

Tearfully, she asked, “Why aren’t you disgusted?” It was clear that she was.

“Because I know what it’s like to have someone hurt you and want to help them anyway. I know what it can feel like when you finally realize that you can’t. The guilt, and the relief? I know how they war with each other.” Spencer watched as she shut her eyes tightly at the painful truths he was speaking. But he was getting through to her, so he knew he had to take the next step. He said, “After your father died, you moved on with your life. Eli didn’t, and I think you know that. Just like you know that he isn’t well.”

Caroline sobbed, “Oh he’s not! He’s not well. I’ve tried to get him to listen, to go and see someone about it but he _won’t_. Eli can’t stand Dennis. He is so jealous of him and I just can’t have them around each other. Dennis would figure it out, and then he’d know!” She shuddered. “That’s part of why I agreed to the move. I can’t let my brother take this from me. South Carolina would be a fresh start. I know I’d be abandoning Eli but he already thinks I have, just by having my own life. He _hates_ me for leaving him!” 

She cried, overcome by her grief. Spencer sat back a little and tried to sound calm, tried to make her feel calm. “Caroline listen to me: I know that your brother doesn’t hate you. And deep down he knows that he’s not ever going to get back to the way the two of you were. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried.”

“M’what?” She looked up between her tears. “What are you saying?”

Spencer gave an apologetic look before revealing, “He has tried. He’s done things to try and regain even a glimpse of his childhood with you. He can’t bear to see you live on your own, without him and only him. It’s made him do bad things, desperate things, to try and get that back.” Carefully reaching into his pocket, Reid cautioned, “I want to show you a photo. It might not be something you’ll recognize, but I need to know if anything about the room in the picture is the least bit familiar to you.”

Caroline looked utterly terrified. “What is it?” she asked fearfully.

“I promise you, there is nothing bad in this picture,” Spencer assured. “Do you trust me?” Caroline bit her lip but nodded. “Okay.” Spencer flipped the picture around so that she could see. “Do you know this place? Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

Her eyes squinted at the photo which Spencer knew depicted a narrow, artificial room with a Plexiglas living enclosure at one end. There were two people sitting in the enclosure, not doing much of anything, though entertainment had been provided. It was the Wright twins looking scared, but Reid knew that they were simply strangers to Caroline’s eyes. She blinked. “I don’t… no. I’ve never seen this. Who are those people?”

Spencer shook his head, “That doesn’t matter. Focus on the small details in the room. Does anything ring a bell? Does this look like someplace your brother might go? Somewhere he might have access to?” 

“These are the people that went missing,” Caroline whispered. She finally understood, the strangely-staged, clinical room in the picture making her skin crawl. “Eli has them? Oh god. Why?!” She began to cry in earnest. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.”

As her panic grew, Reid knew he was losing his control over the situation. He had to act fast or else he really wasn’t going to get anything more out of this interview. “Everything is still in his favor,” he lied. “We can find him. We can make this right. I just need your help. I need you to tell me where he would go. Is there an old house? A hangout? Somewhere the two of you spent time together? Is there anywhere special?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I… I can’t! I don’t know. That picture isn’t Eli. I don’t know that place!” she tearfully insisted. “I thought you understood! Can’t you understand that I just can’t do this? _Please_. I can’t betray him again.”

“You’re not betraying him.” Reid fixed her with his most serious gaze. Comfort time was over, now he needed to make Caroline man up and do the right thing. “We need to find him. I know you want to help your brother, but allowing him to hurt people isn’t the right thing to do for him. What he needs is to be in a hospital to get help for his issues. That’s all we’re trying to do here. Can you think really hard for me please? It’ll help us if you can tell me where else he might go. Anywhere. Think hard.”

After a moment she seemed to sag, and Spencer knew that he’d convinced her. “I really don’t know where he is,” she said. “We... we used to… _be_ together in our dad’s old place.” She looked down, mortified. “It was our world, the only place we were ever alone.”

Spencer nodded, reaching to pat her hand gently again. “That’s good Caroline. That’s really helpful. Thank you.” He stood up, and as soon as he did he felt all of the tight, hot, light-heated feelings that he’d been ignoring for the duration of the interview creeping back upon him. Crap. Trying to remain collected, he pulled one of his old cards from the Richmond field office out of his wallet and handed it to Caroline. “If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to call.” 

Her fingers accepted the card numbly, but she didn’t make any attempt to look at him again. She seemed done with the whole thing, and Spencer went to leave through the doorway. “Agent Reid?” she called suddenly from behind.

Spencer looked back. “Yes?”

“…Promise me you won’t hurt him. That you’ll get him help?” she sounded broken. Sad and nearly desperate for reassurance that she hadn’t betrayed her brother again.

Reid could only nod. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“Thank you.”

\---


	6. Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. Finally you get a little more interesting action.

Reid met Morgan in the hallway by the front door, and right away it was very clear that the other agent had been listening-in the whole time. Morgan was looking at him with something akin to respect. “Good work,” he said simply while turning for the door. But he paused with his hand on the knob. “That story you told; what you said about your mom being depressed, taking care of her…” Derek hadn’t forgotten the story, or how Spencer had sounded when telling it. It had been to gain the witness’ trust, but… “Was it true?” He looked over his shoulder. “Did you mom have major depressive disorder?”

“No,” Reid said. Morgan felt something in him relax at hearing that, in knowing that the kid had made it up. “She had schizophrenia.” Reid pushed past him and headed down the front path. Shocked, Morgan followed. 

A second SUV had pulled up along the curb, parking nearer to the house than Reid and Morgan had. It was Hotch and Rossi that got out of its doors. They all met at the edge of the lawn. “Did you discover anything at the dental office?” Morgan asked Rossi, as much to know the answer as to distract himself from thinking too much about Reid.

“Just that he worked alone in the back as one of the techs. Coworkers described him as introverted and awkward. I have a feeling they were being generous in their descriptions of him.”

Deadpan, Hotch repeated, “You ‘have a feeling’?” After the remark, he looked straight at Morgan, as if he’d said it only for him. “He has a _feeling_.”

Derek sighed, knowing that he’d deserved that one. “I get it Hotch. You don’t have to tell me again.” Morgan knew that he’d started a fight with Reid for those very words only a few hours before. 

“Am I missing something here?” Rossi asked, then shook it off, saying, “Nope. I don’t want to know.”

“What did you find out from the sister?” Hotch asked, back to being all-business.

“Reid just interviewed her. She seems well-adjusted but she certainly doesn’t think he is. Apparently they were left unsupervised for a large portion of their childhood and adolescence, and Elijah depended completely on her.” Morgan frowned, “There was definitely an incestual relationship.” He looked back at Reid to see if the other man wanted to be the one to volunteer the information that they’d gained, given the fact that he’d been the one to gain it. But Reid didn’t look much like he wanted to talk at all. He was standing there, several paces behind Morgan, staring at Caroline Forrester’s lawn as if he’d like to lay down on it. Pulling his concerned look from Reid, Morgan told Hotch, “This unsub is suffering from an abandonment complex, likely triggered by the sister getting ready move out of state with her fiancé. There’s no way that doesn’t play out as part of his victimology.”

“We know,” Rossi said. “The receptionist at the dental practice said that Kelly Copeland had a habit of berating her brother when she had to drive him to all of his orthodontia appointments. Our man Eli took notice.”

“We already know that Taryn Wright had a boyfriend moving into her and her twin’s townhome,” Hotch added.

Morgan nodded grimly. “And Emma Hastings was going off to college, leaving baby brother behind.”

“All acts of a sister abandoning the brother who depends on her, in the eyes of our unsub.” It was apparent that all three agents were thinking the same thing: Elijah Forrester was abducting people whose lives reminded him of his own. He was attempting to recreate his love affair with Caroline.

Morgan was about to open his mouth and suggest that they have a detail assigned to the sister’s house, just in case the brother went ballistic and decided to try kidnapping _her_ , but before he could get the words out, a distraction came.

“Hey,” Hotch said very quietly, gaining Morgan’s attention. He inclined his head back to Reid. “Is he alright?” 

“What? Oh.” Morgan looked worried, which didn’t make Hotch feel any better. “I dunno,” he murmured. “He seemed okay while questioning the witness but…”

“But what?”

“He’s been off since we were at the apartment Hotch.”

“Off?”

Morgan gave him a look. “ _Off_. Like, omega stuff.”

Hotch called out, “Dr. Reid …REID.” 

Reid’s eyes snapped up, as if he’d been startled from a daydream. “Yes,” he said, coming forward while obviously trying to right himself. “What’s up?” All three men stared at him, and Reid had the feeling he’d missed something. “What?”

“Are you feeling alright?” 

Spencer blinked heavily, not liking the question. “I… yeah. I mean I haven’t been feeling great but I’m fine. It’s nothing. Why?”

“You don’t look fine,” Morgan said bluntly. “When we were driving over here you looked downright sick.”

Reid glared, desperately wishing that Morgan could have kept that to himself. Now agents Hotchner and Rossi were looking at him as if they expected an explanation. Reid didn’t want to give one. He didn’t want anybody to be worrying about him. “Um, Morgan can I talk to you over here for a moment?” Reid asked nervously, already moving away from the other two men. Morgan seemed unsure but a nod from Hotch had him following. 

The two of them stood far enough away and around the side of their own SUV before speaking. Reid looked so shaky that Morgan had to resist putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Kid, what’s going on?” Morgan asked, forgetting to mind the rule about not calling him ‘kid’. “You seemed fine in the house.”

“I forgot about it during the interview,” Reid mumbled at his feet, feeling thirsty and desperately wishing that he’d asked for a glass of water back in Caroline’s house. “It distracted me.”

“You want to tell me why you dragged me over here?” Morgan asked, trying to sound gentle. He could tell this wasn’t the time for confrontation. “Reid?”

“Why did you have say anything?” Reid finally tore his eyes away from the pavement to look up at Morgan’s face, displaying blown-out pupils and a tense brow. “I didn’t want them to know,” he admitted. 

Feeling a sense of dread, Morgan stepped forward just enough to have Reid backed up against the car. Slowly, not-threateningly, he lowered his face to the level of Spencer’s pulse and put his nose right against skin. A deep inhale was all it took to have him drawing back as if burned. Morgan felt his blood race, all of his senses suddenly on high alert. “…Kid,” he warned, “You’re—”

“I _know_!” Reid cut him off. “You think I don’t know?! I wasn’t supposed to start work until next Monday.” He sounded close to pleading as it became obvious that Morgan had just realized what was going on. “But then the case happened and Agent Hotchner wanted me on the jet… and I didn’t know what to say!”

“And you thought pretending like it wasn’t going to happen was the way to go?!” Morgan shuddered, worried and therefore almost angry at the other man for being so irresponsible. “How close are you to losing it?” he asked.

“I’m _fine_. I just need to get a shot of EHS.” 

The kid was clearly embarrassed as all get out, but he was also declining fast. The hair near his temple had begun to stick to damp skin, he was so flushed. Morgan felt awful. He should have noticed this sooner. He should have realized on the car ride over, or back in the apartment when Spencer had been all but clinging to him. Hadn’t he taken pause at his behavior back at the police station? Foolishly chalked it all up to coffee? He should have _known_. What kind of alpha was he to not have known? To not have done something the moment the signs had first started showing? 

Reid was in stage one heat. 

“What do you want me to do?” Morgan asked decisively, knowing that the omega had pulled him behind the SUV for privacy for a reason. “Do you want an ambulance?” It might have been an extreme suggestion, but Morgan knew that EMTs at least carried medicines to help sedate omegas in heat. Reid was already shaking his head vigorously at that idea though.

“No. I don’t want to make a scene. I can just go back to the police station. They’ll have something there.”

“You can’t drive like this,” Morgan protested. “Hotch is gonna want us to go to the house that Caroline mentioned. I can call JJ to give you a ride…” Morgan knew that JJ was probably the person around whom Spencer would feel the most comfortable in his current situation, and he was right. Reid’s features slackened in relief at the mention of JJ. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes call JJ.” He leant against the side of the car as Morgan did just that, offering the woman a brief explanation over the phone before hanging up. 

“She’s about ten minutes away. Are you okay to wait here if I go with Hotch and Rossi?” 

“Yes but first I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

Reid gulped. “Claim me.”

The air left Morgan’s lungs, and for the first time he felt scared. “Excuse me?”

Reid huffed, already embarrassed enough without having to explain everything out loud. “I don’t know who’s at the station, or anywhere else around here for that matter. I can’t control who I run into, or how much control they might have over themselves. Claim me now, and it won’t matter. I’ll be safe even if I make an embarrassment of myself.”

Morgan understood. He wished he didn’t, but he completely did. Omegas kept themselves cloistered during heat for several reasons, and one very big reason was to avoid the unwanted advances of attracted alphas. Morgan hadn’t been joking when he’d told Hotch that rapes had occurred. But a _claim_? A claim was semi-permanent, likely to linger until another alpha had the gall to ignore it. And it was a move that reeked of intimacy. Derek had had _girlfriends_ he didn’t claim. “You don’t have anyone’s scent?” Morgan asked, hopefully yet futilely. He knew for a fact that Reid didn’t. He’d found nothing but Spencer when he’d scented him seconds before. “Why don’t you?” he said roughly, nearly accusingly. “At your age?!”

“I don’t want to. And I certainly don’t have to!” Reid hissed. “Besides I don’t know anyone well enough to ask the favor.” He was annoyed that Morgan had the nerve to find fault with him for carrying no alpha’s scent. “None of my family or friends is Gen2,” he insisted. “Please Agent Morgan… Derek, _please_.” 

Derek’s attention snapped firmly back at the use of his first name. He looked so, so cautious, regarding Spencer as if he were a potentially poisonous sort of insect—the sort that looked pretty but could kill if you got too close. “I’ve never done this,” he argued weakly.

“I trust you.”

Morgan’s eyes might have widened. Reid _trusted_ him? How? Why? When, completely at Derek’s doing, they’d been nothing but adversaries from the start. Morgan felt put-upon that the other man saw enough respect, enough self-control in him, to trust him to mark him—hard—and nothing else. “Reid,” Morgan argued tersely, “we should see if they have a heat center in town. You could go there.”

“Are you kidding me?” Spencer rolled his eyes, but his trembling form kind of ruined the illusion of flippancy. “Do I _look_ like I have time for the runaround at the GHC? Besides, I doubt if they’d even have one. Portland isn’t exactly a major city.” 

Morgan didn’t know what to say. He felt helpless when he should have felt very much in control. “I… I’ve never done this,” he repeated. Apparently, it was all he had. Spencer had more though. It was the other man’s pleading brown eyes that had him giving in, the worried squint to his features more than Morgan wanted to look at. It felt as if Reid was flooding his system, all that omega commanding the attention, the _action_ , of Derek’s alpha. And it had Derek nodding despite himself. “Okay.” He stepped closer, near enough that when Reid’s back hit the car, he was right there in front to block him in. The younger agent pulled his head to the side, baring his neck willingly for what he knew would have to transpire. They were the same height, Derek realized as he stood so close, his own eyes coming up just a hair’s breadth below Reid’s. How were they the same height?

Morgan leant down. He held his breath at the surface of Reid’s skin, not wanting to smell him, not wanting to feel the intoxicating rush again. Because it shouldn’t have been intimate, what Reid was asking of him. Any good friend should have been able to do it for another without feeling embarrassed. But the two of them _weren’t_ good friends. They were coworkers, they’d just met, and Reid was entering heat… and to Morgan it did feel intimate. 

Before he could back out of a promise, Morgan dove in. He rubbed his lips and nose and cheek against the kid’s neck, rubbed against him like some great cat, putting his own scent there. He avoided downright kissing him, as that would have held romantic implications that Derek just wasn’t comfortable with, but he made sure that he didn’t shy away from doing things right. Scent on the surface of Spencer’s skin was merely superficial. Morgan knew what he had to do if he wanted to keep his own smell on Reid, if he wanted to warn off encroaching alphas for more than a few hours. Reid knew too. He was waiting for it, breathing heavily and body held tense. No human—SinGen or Gen2— _liked_ pain. Morgan opened his mouth slightly, prepared to nip the skin he’d been nuzzling. …He hesitated…

“Just do it!” Reid urged, trying hard not to sound like he was begging. And then he gasped, the sharp pinch of human teeth suddenly nicking his skin. Spencer slammed his head back against the car to get away from the pain in such a sensitive place, while his body arched hungrily against Derek’s own. Morgan had the sense to suck hard enough at the spot to leave a bruise, and then he was pulling back in what they both knew was a stellar show of self-control. Reid had never felt so grateful and so displeased at the same time. He’d never wanted to be _taken_ —in whatever way that might be—more than he did just then. His vision swam with the want for it. But it was Morgan, and he’d also never wanted anything less than his arrogant coworker’s claim on him. It was also all he had to keep him safe for now, and he’d have to make do. Short of Morgan performing some _highly_ intimate sex acts—or else urinating—on him, this was as deep a mark as Spencer was going to get. When Morgan was standing back a foot and neither one of them knew what to say through their discomfort and arousal, Reid said shakily, “Go on. Go with Hotch. I can wait here for JJ.”

Derek wanted to leave, to ask if the other man was sure he’d be alright and then get the hell out of there. But the alpha part of him didn’t want him to leave at all. Spencer was an omega on the verge of heat, and Morgan had just laid a claim on him. That brought forth all sorts of feelings, all sorts of _urges_ , none of which involved him leaving the other man’s side. He tried not to be pleased at the ever-darkening bruise he could see, at the thought of how others would see it and know to _keep the fuck away_. Such a possessive gesture had his instincts running rampant, screaming at him to keep near what was _his_. But Morgan was hard and he knew Reid must be wet, and he also knew that if they wanted to preserve some semblance of a bearable working relationship, he’d have to leave now. So he ignored it. Reid wasn’t his, and this was just a favor. Pushing past his impulses, Morgan nodded in agreement that he should go, and he went back around the side of the van to find Hotch and Rossi. 

\---

JJ balanced the two cups of coffee in her hands as she made her way back to where Spencer was. In the afterthought of a room where the officers of the Portland P.D. got shut eye between shifts, Reid was sitting complacently on the bottom of two narrow bunk beds. He’d halfway-undressed himself to allow for the medic at his side, who was just now pressing the remains of an injection into the muscle of his upper arm. JJ averted her eyes as they finished up. She couldn’t help hearing their quiet discussion, though:

“It only takes few minutes to kick in,” the man who’d been administering the medicines told Reid in a hushed tone. “Have you taken EHS before?” 

“A couple of times,” Reid admitted. “It’s never agreed with me, so I avoid it when I can.”

“Okay. So you know that this is a stopgap, right? It’s not meant to be used regularly.”

“I know,” Reid said tiredly, not wanting to sit through the man’s warnings and directions. All he wanted to do was to lie down…

“Very well then. Remember: this will all soften it, it won’t shorten it. Try not to exert yourself for the duration of the heat.” The medic cleared himself away while Spencer shrugged his shirt back on. 

“I’m decent,” Spencer joked, sounding like all his energy had been zapped away from him and it was the last joke he could afford. JJ came closer to sit by him on the bed, setting the coffees down on the floor and placing a careful hand on his shoulder. It was Spencer’s lack of a reaction to the touch that told her how drugged he was. Normally he would have shrunk away. 

“Spence,” she said softly, “Reid. What did he give you? EHS isn’t a sedative.” 

Spencer made a face. “Yeah. He gave me that too, plus something for nausea and something for migraines.”

“Huh?” JJ asked. She’d heard of omegas having poor tolerance for emergency hormonal suppressants but this seemed severe. “You get that sick?” 

Spencer nodded, shifting to lay himself down on the cot. “Unfortunately.”

“Well then why did you ask for them?!”

“Because they’re _emergency_ suppressants. And this is an emergency,” Spencer bit out. “So I’ll get a little sick, so what? It’s better than the alternative.” 

JJ shook her head, upset. “You should have said something. You should have told Hotch it was your week when he told you to start early.”

“Well I didn’t,” Spencer snapped—a rarity for him.

“ _Why_ didn’t you?” she implored. JJ thought back to how unsettled Morgan’s voice had sounded over the phone when he’d called her, asking her to come and pick Reid up. It had come as a shock to the female agent, hearing that Reid was so far gone not even two hours after she’d last seen him. JJ had always given herself more credit in reading omegas than that. “You could have been hurt!”

“I didn’t want to mess this placement up by broadcasting my biggest weakness as an employee on my very first day in the BAU,” Reid admitted. “So I made a stupid choice to ignore the likelihood that I’d go into heat.” He turned his face sleepily into the pillow.

JJ’s eyes hadn’t missed the bruise. It was small, but it was right over the scent gland that all Gen2 had in their necks. Cautiously, she asked, “Reid? Who bit you?”

“Hmm?” Reid blinked sluggishly, the drugs clearly taking an effect. “Oh. Morgan did.”

“WHAT?” JJ’s eyes went huge, before narrowing down to slits. “He _marked_ you?!”

“Claimed,” Spencer said calmly. “He broke skin, _there_ … so claimed, technically.”

JJ made a noise of disbelief. “Spencer! You… you have to tell Hotch. If he assaulted you like that… he had no right.”

“JJ calm down,” Spencer said, annoyed. He didn’t feel anywhere near coherent enough to navigate an angry JJ, eyes already closed tightly in anticipation of a migraine. “He didn’t assault me. I asked him to do it.”

“You—” JJ exhaled. “Oh. But I thought you didn’t like him?”

Spencer couldn’t help it: he laughed. “I don’t. But again: what was I supposed to do? We’re out here in the middle of Portland Maine, where we know no one, and I was going to have to come back to a police station, which statistically speaking is one of the top three places in the continental United States that alphas are likely to be found in high concentrations.”

JJ rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to tell me Reid, I know.” Leave it to Reid to quote statistics while slipping into a drugged stupor. 

“So you can also figure out why I’d ask him to do it,” Reid said plainly. “Embarrassing myself with him was better than chancing getting molested by some random cop and the extent of my protest to it being me, bending over.” At this point, he didn’t even bother to blush. JJ knew more about his personal life than probably any other person around, so Reid wasn’t going to evade the truth. JJ knew it all, after all. She took his hand, simply sitting there with the other agent and trying to comfort him as best she could while he seemed to become weaker and weaker…

 

Finally, after a long time, Reid sighed and ground his palms against the sockets of his eyes. JJ had actually thought he’d been asleep for a few minutes. His voice much weaker than it had been before, he complained, “I ffeel awful.”

“Awful how?”

“My head hurts, my mmm— my sstomach’s in knots.” 

“You’re going to fall asleep real soon,” she promised.

Reid twisted on the bed. “I’m hot JJ. I’m so hot, and it _hurts_ ,” he whimpered, thrashing his head against the cot’s pillow. “It aches.”

JJ blushed. “I know Spence, shh. It’ll be over soon.”

“When?!” Spencer nearly wailed, clearly close to delirious. He writhed against the small bed, fingers clawing uselessly at his clothes. “I’m so hot. I’m so wet.” 

“Shh,” JJ hushed him, glancing backwards to check that the door to the room was all the way closed. “Spence don’t say that. Just… relax.”

“I’tssnot working,” Spencer slurred, looking only half-conscious now. “It’s not.”

“Oh _trust me_ : it is,” JJ said. She wasn’t sure Spencer even noticed himself fading.

His hands flopped back to the bed. “When is thissstuff going to knock me out?” Exhausted tears slipped past the edges of his eyes. “I need… I need…” Unconsciously, his hips ground back against the mattress, seeking something that would make it all better. But it was useless. 

JJ felt the need to avert her eyes, knowing that her friend wouldn’t have liked her seeing him like this. “Spence please, don’t,” she pleaded quietly, wishing there was something more she could do. 

His eyes squeezed shut tightly, more tears slipping past in his frustration. “Oh nooo. I don’t want to. I don’t want it! Why? Whywhywhyoh god!” he moaned miserably. 

“Shhh. Soon it’ll be okay,” JJ promised, babbling reassurances to him the way she did to Henry when he got sick. JJ felt glad that Reid was at least very, very out of it right now. She knew that he’d have been mortified to know how he was acting. She knew that just as surely as she knew she’d flat out lie to him later when he asked about it. She just kept murmuring soothingly to him as the drugs wound their way through his system, her calm, sweet voice right by his ear. It was the last sound he remembered hearing, her cool hands on his skin the last thing he remembered feeling, before he lost consciousness.

 

It might have been two hours or two days later when Spencer woke. He’d have had no way of knowing, except for that JJ was still there, sitting in a chair next to the bed. All he had to do was open his eyes and look at her questioningly, to have her saying, “Not long. Morgan, Rossi and Hotch haven’t even gotten back yet.”

Spencer breathed a sigh of relief. Good. He hadn’t passed out and missed the entire case. He groaned, trying to move and realizing how gross he felt. “God. I need a shower,” he mumbled. “Ugh.”

“You shouldn’t have waited to ask for the shot,” JJ chastised, pushing him back down when he tried to rise up to his elbows. 

“Hey!”

“Hold still.” She reached to feel for a temperature, not missing how, now lucid, he avoided the touch. Reid’s forehead was no longer blisteringly hot, and the sweat had cooled. “If you’d just admitted to yourself what was happening, you wouldn’t have gotten so sick from the shot.” 

“How would you even know that?” Reid huffed, stilling to let the woman complete her inventory of him. “You see? I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.” JJ sat back in her bedside chair with a _look_. “What are you going to tell Hotch?”

Spencer bit his lip. “I’m sure Morgan’s already told him the truth.”

“I’m sure. What would you expect, after what you asked of him?”

Reid scowled. “What? Don’t tell me you feel bad for _him_? He’s not the one who had to go through a heat in the middle of a case, and then get violently ill to stop it.”

“No,” JJ agreed, “but he is the one who had to do something intimate that he probably wasn’t comfortable with, and then had to fight off whatever urges he had afterwards. You got what you wanted and Derek never got the payoff that’s supposed to come with a mark like that. You’re lucky that he has such good control over himself.”

Reid snorted. “‘Control’. Yeah right. He’s only been bullying me from the second he laid eyes on me.”

“I’m serious Spencer!” JJ said angrily. “Another alpha could have done a lot worse. You could have been hurt, or forced to bond with someone or…” she looked at him with frightened eyes, finishing shakily, “you could have been _raped_.” 

“I wasn’t,” Spencer calmed her, finally realizing how much this had rattled his friend. Those big, blue eyes that he’d always found to be so beautiful held a world of distress. “JJ, I wasn’t.”

This lack of responsibility, of pragmatism was out of character for Reid. Ever since she'd met him, JJ knew that he'd been one to act in accordance with the realities of a situation, never one to mess up this badly. Seeing such qualities in someone so young had been one of the things that drew her to him—as a friend and potentially more—in the first place. “Do you remember when I met you at the academy?” she asked suddenly. “You were so unhappy. You were so unsure about what you were doing, even though you _knew_ how capable you were.”

Spencer couldn’t help softening at the memory. “You were the reason I stayed. Your class on interview techniques was the first time I’d ever heard someone actually _praising_ the traits of omegas.” He shook his head. “I’d never been told it could be an advantage.”

JJ regarded him with a tender look. Young as he was now, Reid had been even younger when he’d met her at Quantico. Only twenty then, she’d known right away what the skinny, awkward young man hiding in the back row of the lecture hall was. She’d caught him after the class to have a private word. Spencer had been polite, but he’d admitted that he was considering dropping out of the academy, of leaving the FBI before he’d even begun. JJ had asked him why.

“I was so afraid of them,” Spencer recalled bitterly. “It seemed like more alphas than I’d ever met in my life were in the Bureau, and they all acted like I had no right to be there with them.”

“They were wrong,” JJ said firmly, but Spencer only flinched.

“Were they? I mean I know I can do this job but maybe it’s true. Maybe I can’t do it as well with alphas around. There’s clearly more of them in the field than there are people like me. And they don’t lose a week every month due to _this_. Maybe… maybe they really are better suited to—”

“DON’T even finish that sentence,” JJ barked, cutting him off. She had a look of distaste on her face, hating to see her friend so downtrodden at this moment. “Think about what you’re saying! That argument’s been tried before and it’s always wound up rejected. Minorities, women, people like me… It’s no truer about omegas,” she said. “Don’t let one bad episode ruin how high you’ve built yourself up Reid. You are valuable. As an _omega_ , you are valuable.” Reid looked doubtful, and JJ hated to see that. She hated to see the wonderful young man that she’d gotten to know so well over the past three years doubting himself like this. “Reid,” she tried again, more softly. “Spence, I love you. You know that right?”

Spencer smiled sadly. “I know. I know.” He peeked up at her. “I know I have your respect, that you take me seriously. I just wish I didn’t have to constantly wonder with other people. It’s hard not to let that wear on your self-image.”

“I know it is.”

Spencer bristled. “No, you don’t though. Nobody just assumes that you have no ambition other than making babies. Nobody walks up to you in the middle of a public place and feels free to smell your neck. Nobody thinks it’s okay to grope you and make lewd remarks—”

“—Not unless they want to see the business end of my fist.” 

Reid nodded. “Right. But it’s different _because_ I am omega. I mean would you…” he faltered.

“What?” JJ asked. “Reid? Would I what?” 

Reid wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Would you have only ever considered me as purely a friend, if I wasn’t omega?” He knew that she wouldn’t lie to him, not about this. It wasn’t as if they weren’t each intimately aware of the mutual attraction they’d always shared with one another, but never acted on.

“Oh, Spence,” JJ sighed. “Don’t ask me that. It’s not fair.” She could see that her response wasn’t too far off from what the man had been expecting, so she hastily added, “I would have dated you.”

“Why didn’t we, then?”

“We… both knew that it wouldn’t work,” JJ defended, trying to get Spencer to admit to it as well. “You know it too.”

“Right.” Spencer looked angry, though not at JJ. He stared bitterly down at his lap. “Because I’m omega.” Not for the first time, he felt shame for what he was.

“Oh come on Spence. It’s not like you’re some social pariah. I know you’ve had girlfriends,” JJ encouraged. “They didn’t care about you being Gen2.”

Spencer shook his head. “Never at first. Everyone likes to think they're a progressive. They don’t _want_ to think that it matters. But SinGens can’t handle the realities of me being an omega, and when I’m with other omegas, well then I end up just not being enough. …You remember Lila?” 

JJ smiled and nodded. “Of course.” To her knowledge, Reid had been entertaining somewhat of a relationship with the young woman when the two of them had met. “I saw she was on that new detective show, Precinct 24? Haven’t gotten the chance to watch yet.” JJ shrugged. “So how is she?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said dejectedly. “Probably still with the alpha she left me for.” He could have gone on; could have told JJ that anyone he’d ever dated—SinGen or Gen2—had wound up leaving him, but that would have just added to his mortification, so he kept it to himself. “It wasn’t her fault,” he added upon seeing JJ’s expression. “She was omega too. I didn’t expect her to stay with someone like me. It wasn’t even fair to ask her.”

“Stop it,” JJ said firmly. “I don’t want to hear you grind yourself down like this. Would you talk like this if anyone else from the team was here to hear you?” 

“You know I wouldn’t.”

“Right. Because you have pride around them. You have strength.”

Reid scoffed. “Yeah and that’s just all one big act too, isn’t it?”

“Don’t ever be ashamed of who you are Spencer.”

“At least if I were like Morgan people would take me seriously,” Reid argued lightly.

“Oh, sweetie.” JJ resisted the maternal urge to gather Spencer into her arms. Somehow, she didn’t think the man would be very receptive to that right now. “Don’t. Do not wish to be like him.”

Reid shook his head. “I don’t. Even alphas like him have their own problems to face. I’d rather his problems than mine but… I’m not actually jealous of him.”

“That’s good.”

Reid let his eyes track up to look seriously at JJ, holding her with his gaze. “I’m jealous of you.”

…JJ blinked, and she knew she must look shocked. “ _Me_? But why?”

“Because,” he replied simply, looking at her like it was the most obvious and desirable thing in the world. “Because you can pass.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, review and say why *hugs!*


	7. Instincts Run Amok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while longer to pound out this latest chapter. I have another one soon on the way, but my rate of posting is going to be slower than it was because my crazy-ass job has hit the busy season. Still, work on this fic is my sole current hobby so you should be seeing regular updates from me on Reid and Morgan's evolving Gen2 bromance. Enjoy!

A lie. A really good, really inventive lie was what was needed in times like these. ‘Times like these’ being when you went and allowed yourself to freaking _claim_ your omega coworker.

The thought of that unfortunate reality was still seeping through Derek’s brain even as they rode silently to their next destination. Rossi sat up front with Hotch and Morgan shared the back with Prentiss. He stared distractedly out the window as they drove. The other three members of the team discussed the case, bouncing ideas off of each other and shooting down the ones that didn’t fit, but Morgan had nothing to contribute. Memories of cloying smell and sweaty skin clouded his thinking like some slow-acting drug. All he could think about was that he’d marked Reid. Marked him hard enough for it to count as a claim. Had he made a huge mistake? 

It’d been rushed. That didn’t sit well with Derek. He’d hardly had any time to think over what Reid was asking—begging—of him before he’d agreed and done it. Sure, it was for protection, and it had seemed like a reasonable measure at the time. But now all of Morgan’s doubts flooded in, and he worried that he’d done something unnecessary and inappropriate. _Definitely inappropriate_ , he stressed to himself. He certainly didn’t want the rest of the team to know.

So, he asked himself, what was his excuse to give? What was his really good, really inventive lie? He pulled his gaze from the window to regard the other three agents in the car.

Well he’d told Hotch and Rossi, and then Prentiss that Reid was simply ill. Not necessarily good or inventive, but the only thing that he could come up with as JJ was mysteriously whisking Reid away, no explanations given. Morgan wasn’t thick; he knew that none of the other agents bought it, but the case was more important and they held their tongues. They could believe him or not believe him. Either way, JJ and Reid left, and the rest of them drove out to the house where Caroline and Elijah Forrester had grown up. 

Situated a good twenty miles outside of Portland, Hallowell was a sleepy town that’d obviously seen better days. The address they sought was on a more secluded plot of land, with nearby woods and fields in place of any visible neighbors, and the house itself looked small and rundown. The yard was unkempt, grass and weeds growing haphazardly around the mailbox and the old tractor trailer parts that’d been abandoned in the drive. It was obvious that no person had made any serious attempt at inhabiting the structure for a while. “Perfect place to hide,” Morgan observed as they all got out of the car. Hotch and Rossi led, with Prentiss close at their backs. Nobody said much of anything when the front door was found to be unlocked. Hotch went in, and then Rossi, and then Prentiss. It certainly wasn’t illegal to search an abandoned residence. 

Morgan felt odd as he followed the rest of them inside, unable to shake the feeling that he was separate from the rest of the team. He felt numb, disconnected. He should be thinking about their unsub, mind on sharp alert for any unexpected noises or glimpses of movement inside the house, but… it was as if there was something important that he was supposed to be doing, some elusive appointment he’d made and was supposed to be going to, but had simply forgotten. It itched the back of his head, making him more anxious than he should have been. Standing behind Prentiss in the front hallway, he finally realized what the feeling was: he was utterly, completely distracted. It was something that had never happened to him on a case before. His brain kept jumping back to Reid, instinctive alpha traits of overprotectiveness making him wonder if the younger man was alright, if JJ was getting him the medicines he needed. Derek felt paranoid that he should be at the other man’s side, doing… something, for him. Making him feel better? Keeping him safe? At the very least making sure that no one else so much as looked at him the wrong way. Spencer was HIS. His to mark, his to mate, his to—

_What?_ Morgan blanched at the possessive thought, shocked that he could actually feel that way about someone that he barely knew. Had he really let his instincts run that amok, to have him thinking such ludicrous things in his head? Spencer Reid was his coworker, for Christ’s sake! _It’s because you claimed him_ , Derek thought angrily to himself. _You let an omega you barely know talk you into something foolish and now you’re stuck with the consequences_. Funny thing was, Morgan had pretty much just assumed that he could ignore anything as base as instinct. He’d always managed well-enough before.

“Morgan?” Rossi was looking back at him, clearly waiting for him to join the investigation. He flicked his head in the direction Hotch had gone. “Come on.” 

Morgan nearly winced at the curious gaze Rossi was giving him. The older man had a knack for figuring things out on minimal information, and he was the last person Derek wanted scrutinizing him. “Yeah, I’m coming.” He fought to keep his mind on the house they were entering, and not on a certain twenty three year old doctor back at the police station.

Through the first room, Emily shuddered as she immediately had to swipe a wisp of something off her shoulder. “Why are there always spider webs everywhere we go?” she complained. “It is so damned cliché and I HATE…clichés,” she finished mildly, resetting her posture. Normally it would have been excellent fodder—especially to Derek—but none of the other agents had the heart to tease her about a girlish fear of bugs just then. They were there looking for an unsub who’d committed incest with his sister before abducting six and murdering four people, after all. And the spider webs _were_ pretty severe.

“Hotch,” Morgan said. “This place is dead.” The lights were off, all power appeared to be off. The interior of the house was the same temperature as that day’s damp 64 degrees. The dust and the bugs all looked undisturbed as well. As they toured the rooms of the small home, it became very clear that no person had set foot inside the house for months, if not years. They went downstairs. “This clearly isn’t it,” Morgan stated the obvious, as they all walked tentatively about the last area of the house to be explored: the basement. It was an unfinished basement, absolutely cluttered with a lifetime’s worth of junk. “We need to be looking somewhere else,” Morgan insisted. “This is a waste of time. He hasn’t been here.” He halfway hoped they could just go to the police station and…

“You guys! Over here.” Prentiss had waded her way into an old storage room off one of the basement walls. Strangely enough, it was this room that was the only cleared space in the entire lower level. Morgan, Rossi and Hotch poked their heads in. The room’s walls had been crudely painted in a soft shade of blue, the concrete floor buffered by a large, squishy area rug. There was a faded couch pushed up along one wall, a twin bedframe pushed up against another. The small bed was still in possession of its mattress and rumpled sheets, as if its occupants had left just that day instead of years ago. Nobody overlooked the small miniature refrigerator and hotplate that were stowed away in one corner. Morgan distinctly remembered Caroline relating how she’d learned to cook in her neglect.

“This looks like an adolescent’s dream hideaway,” Rossi observed. “CDs, sneakers, posters over the bed for some teen band.”

“You mean the Backstreet Boys,” Emily pointed out, clearly amused that Rossi didn’t know who they were. 

“Excuse me if I don’t keep up with current trends in pop music.”

Both Prentiss and Morgan smirked. “The Backstreet Boys are not current,” Emily informed. “But that makes sense. This room definitely fits the profile of a couple of teenagers spending way too much time together in here about fifteen years ago.” She paused, counting silently. “And Caroline Forrester would have been around that age when the incest took place.”

“Just before they were separated.”

“When our man Eli was fourteen. I think we found the love nest,” Morgan said. He looked closer at the sheets on the bed. They were rumpled but he could tell they were unused. They smelled stale. “He’s not sleeping here,” Morgan announced. “I’d be able to smell him if he was, but this place is a pheromonal desert.” 

Prentiss had walked over to the one shelving unit that the room contained, looking between the books and other things that sat there. “…Aha. Here.” Her fingers closed around a piece of paper, and she pulled it out to show them all what turned out to be a photograph. Emily winced. “Why isn’t this one in his collection at home?” she wondered aloud, though her voice sounded no less affected than her coworkers looked to be. Breathily, she added, “It’s certainly more... well... just _more_. You’d think this would be framed somewhere, not squished between a bunch of books.” 

It was a shot of Elijah and Caroline in bed, beyond the pale in terms of nudity. The other photographs had not been this graphic. Morgan had been the one standing closest to Prentiss when she’d pulled it, and he found himself wishing he could un-see it. It was always harder, once you’d met the victims in real life. “Maybe it’s his way of offsetting guilt,” Morgan guessed. “If he avoids explicit pictures, he can romanticize what happened in his mind.” He was about to say that they should bag the photo to add to the evidence that they’d already collected, but was cut short.

“Put it back,” Hotch said sternly. Prentiss looked confused at the order to re-shelve evidence, so Hotch added, “It tells us nothing we don’t already know. Nothing in here does. This may have been where our unsub built his fantasy world as a teenager, but it isn’t where he’s built it now.”

Disappointedly, they all found that they had to agree. Only Morgan dared to pick the photo up anyway on the way out. 

\---

“There’s an empty shed and workshop in the backyard,” Prentiss announced, having returned with Rossi. “A few old rigs and generally just a bunch of rusted-out junk. Morgan, you said the father was a trucker, right?”

Morgan nodded from where he leant against the SUV, waiting for Hotch. The senior agent was making a phone call and the weather was slowly souring. “It’s going to rain,” he muttered.

“We’d better get back to the station.” It was Hotch, off the phone and walking back to them in the drive. “There’s a few rooms set aside for us at a local motel. We can get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.”

“This was a bust,” Rossi complained, echoing what all of them were thinking. Now they had nowhere else to look, no other leads to go off of, and their dead end had come just when a break in the case was needed most—the unsub’s usual six day cycle of captivity was almost at a close. 

“Tomorrow. Fresh,” Hotch reminded them as they all climbed into the car. “Just because the sister mentioned this house doesn’t mean it’s relevant to our unsub now. There are other places he’d go. We just have to figure out what those are.”

Prentiss had taken the back seat once again, and Derek moved to join her. He had his mouth open as he slid in, planning to say something to Hotch about maybe it being a good idea to keep tabs on the sister, maybe watch her calls or keep a patrol at her house, just in case she _was_ in contact with her brother, but before he could get it out, Hotch’s phone was buzzing again.

Aaron picked up, the call coming in through the car’s audio system. “JJ,” he said, “I’m with the team on route back to the station. You’re on speaker.”

For a second, there was no sound, and then JJ’s voice sounded hesitantly over the line: _“Well can I be off speaker?”_

Hotch took his phone in hand and turned off the car’s system, and Morgan stared worriedly at his back as JJ relayed her message privately. What was it that JJ had to tell Hotch that couldn’t be shared with the entire team? Morgan could think of only one thing: something to do with Reid. Whatever JJ was telling Hotch over the phone, Morgan could see that it was making the man tense up. Their conversation was brief and consisted mainly of one word-utterances from Hotch, so that by the time they hung up, Morgan was not surprised to catch a withering glare from his boss in the rear-view mirror. “That was JJ,” he announced needlessly. 

“What’s wrong?” Rossi asked, interest piqued. 

Again, Morgan was cursing Rossi’s knack for prying. Hotch was too, apparently. He shut it down right away with a terse, “…Nothing. Nothing relevant to the case, anyway. We’re just going to pick her and Dr. Reid up from the precinct and go check into our rooms.” There was clearly something Hotch wasn’t saying. Morgan knew exactly what it was, and Emily and David obviously wanted to ask, but everybody kept their mouths shut for the rest of the drive back.

 

It wasn’t until they’d all congregated in the parking lot outside of the motel that Hotch pulled Morgan aside. “Derek,” he said, displaying an unusual use of the other man’s given name. “I’m sure you know it was no accident that I had agent Reid ride in the other car.”

Morgan’s jaw stiffened out of reflex. He knew he was about to be challenged over what he’d done. “What are you talking about?” he asked, determined not to make it easy for Aaron to take him down a peg. “That was on purpose?”

“Playing dumb doesn’t become you. You damn well know it was. Morgan: Reid _wasn’t_ sick.”

“Technically, he was.”

Hotch frowned. “For this team to work I have to be able to assume my agents aren’t actively lying to me!”

“I’m not lying,” Morgan stressed. “He was heat sick.” Hotch scoffed at his bending of words, and Morgan pressed on, “It was his business, Hotch. He didn’t want you to know.”

“The second his ‘business’ affects this investigation, I _need_ to know. Even when you’ve decided to make it _your_ business as well.”

Morgan tensed at the implication that his boss already knew what he’d done. He was pretty sure that Hotch had no idea what an alpha’s claim over an omega meant. “She told you?” he asked warily instead, referring to JJ. He couldn’t believe the woman had just gone and _told_ Hotch about the claim. “Hotch, it’s not what you think…”

“No? So you didn’t assault agent Reid on the job?”

Morgan balked. “What? No! I didn’t! Is that what JJ told you?”

“I want to know what YOU have to tell me,” Hotch diverted. “What. did. you. do?”

Morgan felt like stalking off. He was so pissed right then that all he wanted was to growl at the section leader to keep his nose out of things he didn’t understand, to not answer him, and to leave to go find the closest thing of comfort. Unfortunately, his inner alpha would probably have decided that the closest such thing was Spencer. Morgan sighed, counting backwards from twenty in his head like his middle-school health counselor had first taught him to do. He even did it in Spanish to make it last longer. His heart rate slowed as he was able to remind himself to be logical. Hotch was not threatening him, was not posturing or trying to take away what was his. The reflexive anger that’d gotten him halfway hard abated, and finally he felt able to fully-face his boss and answer, “I didn’t do anything wrong, or anything that he didn’t ask of me. I marked him territorially at his own request.”

Hotch’s eyebrows rose a fraction. He seemed to realize that Morgan had nearly alphaed-out on him. “He asked you to?” he repeated.

“Yes. Contrary to popular belief, we _can_ control ourselves to an extent,” Morgan griped. “But he wasn’t going to be able to without help. He was losing it Hotch. He was going into heat and he needed protection.”

Aaron stood there a moment, looking like he was figuring something out. “From other alphas?” he guessed.

“Yes. So before he left with JJ I scent marked him.”

“JJ says you bit him,” Hotch pointed out, sounding nearly accusatory. 

“It’s part of a claim,” Morgan explained. “It wouldn’t have held if I hadn’t. Hotch I swear I didn’t do this to bully him or assert power in any way. I didn’t even want to do it. It was purely a favor.”

“So you’re the only thing keeping him safe right now?”

“He’s been given EHS.”

“But that only makes him feel more cognizant, right? It doesn’t stop the… situation?”

Morgan scoffed. “You can just say it, Hotch. _Heat_ isn’t a dirty word. And no, it doesn’t stop it. I’m sure he’ll still have some symptoms until it runs its course. But if he’s taken the meds and he’s got my scent, then he’s at least safe. From himself and from other people.”

Hotch looked perturbed, but nodded. This was something that he perhaps should have attended to more during the hiring process of his Gen2 agents, and he felt guilty for his lack of understanding. He also felt a little worried that his newest team member obviously hadn’t felt comfortable coming to talk to him about this issue _before_ it’d become such a problem. Reid needed to know that he wouldn’t be judged based on heats or biology or any of that. He also needed to know that he couldn’t ignore problems and hope that they didn’t end up endangering the team or its mission. The sooner Hotch was able to communicate both of those things, the better. Still, he was mindful of his other agents milling about closer to the motel’s office, waiting for him to sign them in. Everybody needed a good night of sleep. Though he’d have liked to stay and ask Morgan a few more clarifying questions about what was happening with Reid, Aaron was sensitive to the fact that he had an entire team to manage, not just two Gen2 men who’d entangled themselves in some way he didn’t quite understand. “I trust you,” he told Morgan solemnly. “Always. To do the right thing. Because you’re a good man, a good agent, and you’ve never not come through for me. So I’m trusting you now, because to be honest I’m a little out of my depth here.”

Morgan nodded. “I get it. What do you want?”

“What does he need?” Hotch asked. “Can I keep him on this case?”

Morgan’s immediate impulse was to say _no_. Because every particle of his inner alpha knew that, brilliant as he might have been, a heat-riddled Spencer Reid would not do well in the field. If they had to bust down doors unexpectedly, if they encountered an armed unsub and all hell broke loose, no heat-stricken omega—suppressants or not—would be in the best shape to contend with such a situation. It would put Reid in danger, and that was something that raised Morgan’s hackles. His inner alpha reared at the idea of ever letting Reid near such a situation, let alone now. That side of him, that possessive side that’d only been heightened by the claiming, urged him to say: _NO, take him off the case!_ …But that wouldn’t have been fair to Reid. Reid was a grown ass man and whatever else he’d signed up for by asking Derek for his mark, he hadn’t asked for him to be his keeper. Morgan forced himself to hold his tongue. Instead, he found himself saying, “I can’t answer that until I talk to him.”

Hotch nodded. “Do it.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh please leave me some interesting reviews and comments. I'm dying for them.


	8. Got Your Back

The sky had taken on that dusky shade of purple that always preceded true black, but it was evermore obscured by foreboding clouds as Morgan knocked on the motel room door. The breeze behind his neck told him that the storm they’d all been fearing was closing in, and Morgan felt the tiniest bit glad that they’d be able to spend the night indoors, rather than out hunting the unsub. Only thing was: he’d been assigned a room with Reid.

Said person opened the door just as Morgan was about to give up being polite and simply swipe his own key card. The kid blinked owlishly at him through a pair of vintage glasses. “Hi,” he said softly. He turned and walked back into the room, leaving it to Morgan to decide if he’d come in. He did.

Morgan looked around, and—a bit more hesitantly—he scented. Due to some minor miracle, the small room smelled fairly neutral. No impenetrable cloud of omega pheromones hung in the air, and Derek felt no physical reaction in himself to being only a few yards away from the man he’d claimed earlier that day. Sure, he could still notice Reid; he _was_ an alpha and the other man _was_ an omega in the middle of a heat cycle, after all. But apparently the emergency suppressants had done a fair job, because Morgan could breathe without feeling like he was going to go into rut. “Pretty boy,” Morgan hedged, not even thinking at his use of the name, “why are you wearing glasses?” He’d seen Reid scrutinizing maps and reading files without them before. Though he couldn’t exactly say that the slighter man didn’t look adorable in the heavy frames. 

“I get headaches when I’m… when I take suppressants,” Reid stated awkwardly from across the room. “Contacts are just asking for trouble.” He placed himself back behind the two-seater table that the room provided. Its surface was strewn with photos and files from the case, and several cans of ginger ale. “I’m assuming you’re here to verbally berate me for what happened today?” he asked, quite calmly in view of what he’d just uttered. 

Morgan gaped. “What? I—No.” He shook his head. “No. Why would I… _‘berate’_ you?”

Behind his glasses, Reid’s eyebrows rose. “Because you’ve pretty much been doing nothing but that since we met. Ever since you caught my scent, your behavior has been the quintessential territorial response of an alpha male responding to an interloper.”

Morgan was pretty sure his entire face screwed up. Reid’s words felt like a mean accusation… except that when he opened his mouth to argue against those words, Morgan found that he couldn’t. He shut his mouth again. “Alright, fair enough,” he said. “But I’m not here to get on your case, I promise.” Reid made no move to answer. His attention was firmly fixed on the case files before him, but Derek got the distinct feeling that it was a forced concentration—that, had it been anyone else in the room, Spencer would have afforded them a look. “Kid,” he tried again, voice soft, 

“I’m not,” Reid said distractedly, still scrutinizing the files.

“Huh?” 

Reid finally looked up, regarding Morgan sharply. “I’m not a ‘kid’. I’m twenty three years old.”

Morgan felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “To me, that’s a kid.”

“Yeah well, you should think of a better belittling term,” Reid said. “Something more accurate than ‘kid’ or… ‘pretty boy’.” He scowled.

“Hey: who said pretty boy wasn’t accurate?” Morgan meant it as a joke, but he could instantly see that it made the other man uncomfortable. Given what had transpired between them that afternoon, he couldn’t exactly blame him. Derek held his hands up, “Okay, okay. I’ll think of something else.”

Reid smooshed his lips together, looking unsure but finally settling on a haughty, “Thank you.”

Morgan lingered, not sure how to announce to the ki— um, _man_ —that they were sharing a room. “Reid?” He said hesitantly. “I’m supposed to bunk with you tonight.”

“Bunk?” Distant lightening lit up the window at Derek’s back. Reid looked at him confused for half a second, and then understanding registered on his face. “Oh.” _Bunkbeds—bunk_. Morgan had brought his go bag into the room with him. He was holding it in his hand. Reid looked unsettled, but no form of protest left his lips. He simply sat there in the chair, staring with a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look. A slow decrescendo of thunder rolled in echo of the lightning.

It was only when Morgan began to feel uncomfortable that he moved to set his bag down on the floor. He stepped a little closer to where Reid was, and offered, “Look: I told Rossi to hold off on putting his things away. I can go room with Hotch if it makes you more comfortable.” Reid frowned. _Frowned_ , of all things. “What? You don’t want that?” Morgan asked, feeling confused.

“I… I don’t know.” Reid looked befuddled, and he sat back in his chair. “No?”

“You’re asking me?”

“I’m having conflicting feelings,” Spencer said matter-of-factly. “My revulsion is tempered by a strong sense of attraction. Probably due to the combination of the heat suppressing drugs, and the unprecedented influx of serotonin released by your scent marking.” 

It was the clinical, scholarly way in which he said it that had Morgan chuckling. _Revulsion?_ Only this nerd, this brain with legs before him would admit something like that in such plain, unabashed words. Suddenly, Morgan knew that he had his new diminutive. “That’s our biology for you, boy-wonder.”

Reid frowned in such a way as to distinctly resemble Kermit the frog. _Boy wonder?_ “I’m not sure that’s an improvement,” he grumbled.

“Cut me a break. It’s been a long day.” Finally feeling a little bit more at ease, and pretty sure now that Reid wasn’t going to refuse to room with him, he walked over to where he’d put his bag and began digging around inside of it. 

“…What are you doing?” 

Morgan looked up, plastic baggie of toiletries in hand. “Well if you’re not going to kick me out, then I need my stuff,” he grinned. “Can’t go to bed without a shower.” He stood back up straight and headed for the bathroom. 

Reid swallowed. “No,” he said mildly when the door had already closed and he was sure Morgan had the water running and could not hear him. “I guess not.”

\---

Spencer’s turn in the bathroom had taken far longer than Derek’s own, but the older agent suspected that to be due more to the fact that the boy wonder had forgotten his change of clothes outside the bathroom walls, than to any excessive amount of preening. Spencer simply didn’t want to venture out in a towel. The thought made Derek smirk. It also made him the tiniest bit aroused. Any thought that involved the other man naked and nervous would have though, and he brushed the reaction off. His theory was, of course, confirmed, when a blushing but resolute Reid hastened out to snatch up his pajamas before shutting himself away in the steamy bathroom once again. Derek picked up the kindle he’d brought with him and tried to forget what Spencer Reid looked like half-naked and wet. 

In the bathroom, Reid leant weakly against the countertop, regarding his reflection with a fatigued sort of disdain. He’d showered and wrapped the towel about his waist. The humid air from his shower kept Spencer from wanting to dress so soon, but he knew he’d have to if he wanted to rejoin his coworker in the room beyond. Because there was no way that he was changing out there. Reid sighed. Even Derek hadn’t done that. 

_No time like the present_ , he thought, and allowed the towel to slide silently to the floor. Stark naked, he leant against the countertop and regarded his reflection with a fatigued sort of distain. A pale-ish, thin-ish, and certainly tall young man stared back at him. Brown hair and browner eyes framed features that he’d never deigned attractive nor unattractive. But there were things that Spencer did like about his appearance: his lean build showed off what muscles came naturally to him, and his teeth were very white. Once, he’d also liked the fact that he didn’t grow overt amounts of body hair, but that was only until an alpha in his first doctoral thesis program had informed him that it was an androgynous turn-on. 

He didn’t look half-bad, especially in this light, but behind the guise of that reflection lie hidden his other self. His omega self. Reid made a childish face at the mirror, as if he’d insult the omega lurking behind—maybe scare it off, but nothing happened. He pursed his lips in annoyance. Within the heavily-fogged mirror he appeared like someone in the televised version of a dream; muted and fuzzy about the edges, resembling a flushed, damp, and perhaps tired sort of angel. Spencer shook his head a little, assessing the condition of his hair and deciding whether or not he should attempt to make some use out of the room’s proffered hair dryer. He may have looked like a drowned rat just then, but when allowed to dry on its own, his hair was the sort that liked to curl the longer it got. Currently it was creeping down to his shoulders about as fast as untamed kudzu. Spencer thought that he’d have to get a haircut soon. He looked too girly this way. 

The towel got hung up on its silver hook. Spencer thought that it was a nice bathroom—a nice hotel room really, and he might have even been able to enjoy it, if not for the two most obvious reasons in the world: the troublesome case they were working, and the other agent just outside the door.

Morgan. That was the big hurdle for the night, wasn’t it? Through the walls, the tv could be heard tuned to what sounded like a local news station. Spencer knew he’d have to go out there and face Morgan. He felt like doing nothing of the sort though. Mostly he just felt sick, embarrassed, and exhausted from the day’s events. He hadn’t prepared for the possibility of heat, and now he was paying the price of emergency suppressants. He’d already taken the second dosage, which meant that his headache was sure to return in full force soon. He was committed to falling asleep first though. Settling for a quick comb of his hair, Spencer donned first his underwear and then his sleep shirt. He put on some deodorant that was specially made for strung-out omegas, and slipped a guard into his underwear for the slick that invariably occurred whenever he was this far into a cycle. The efforts made him blush, because he knew that no matter how he tried to hide it, Morgan would always be able to tell when he was in heat. Especially now that they’d done what they’d done.

Morgan was looking up at him the second he opened the bathroom door, and Reid’s first thought was that the dark-skinned man looked utterly wonderful sitting there on the bed in nothing but loose sweats, a tight shirt, and bare feet. And still Morgan’s attention was focused all on him. Spencer was sure he was broadcasting his thoughts loud and clear through body language. Swallowing nervously, he approximated some sort of casual nod to acknowledge the other man’s presence and padded into the room. “Hey,” he muttered.

“Hey.” Morgan eyed him up as he walked over and sat himself back down at the room’s little two-seater table. He squinted, thinking that Spencer looked much smaller when he was freshly showered and in sleeping clothes. Something in him wanted to purr in contentment at the sight. Morgan ignored it. “You feeling alright?” he asked carefully, not missing how the kid immediately resumed sipping one of his scattered ginger ales. “You look better. Still look like you’re sick, but better. So… are you?”

Reid looked alarmed, like he’d been asked the only question that he didn’t already know the answer to on a very difficult test. Morgan wanted to know if he was feeling better? If his humiliating, heat-borne madness had tapered off? _Private_ , humiliating heat-borne madness, Reid reminded himself. Morgan hadn’t seen a thing and JJ would never talk. Spencer had never felt more indebted to JJ for anything in his life. “I… yeah,” he floundered. “I’m fine. I mean, I’m doing okay. Better. You?” Reid nearly winced at his stupid words. Why would Morgan be feeling better? Nothing was wrong with him in the first place.

“I’m good,” Morgan said. “I’m glad you’re feeling more in control. I… was worried.”

“Hmm?” Spencer really, really didn’t want to talk about this, but he could already sense a conversive vibe coming off the other man and knew that he’d be goaded to talk. “Yes well, I’m still sick from the meds but I’m not… you know.” _Inhumanly horny_ , he thought.

“And you’re sure you don’t mind rooming together? It’s not going to make this harder for you?”

Reid shrugged, “It’s more likely to help me, scientifically speaking. Now that you’ve laid a claim, our specific blend of pheromones should provide an almost soothing effect when you’re close. Receptor sites for dopamine in the brain’s nucleus accumbens actually tend to increase in omegas who have—” he cut himself off, realizing just how unusual he must sound and that the TV was still turned on at the front of the room. Morgan probably had no interest in hearing him ramble on about the complexities of the human brain. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your television program,” he excused. “Please, don’t mind me.”

“I’m not actually watching this. It’s just the local news. I don’t really have a vested interest in hearing about who in this backwards town won best vintage eighteen wheeler at the county car show.”

“Actually, there aren’t many models of large transport vehicles that are old enough to be considered classic cars—” Reid looked at him, to the TV newscaster that was broadcasting about a local children’s charity, and back Morgan. _Oh_ , Reid thought, _a joke?_ From the look on Morgan’s face, he confirmed that the other man had been expecting a humorous reaction to his words. He’d been trying to make Reid laugh. The thought made Spencer smile. He liked it when Derek looked happy like that. It made him hope that Morgan would try to tell him more jokes in the future. Hopefully better ones. “Oh,” he said. “I see. Okay.” He went back to his previous task of studying the documents and photos from the case that he had laid out in front of him.

“Man, you can’t stay up all night looking at that stuff. If Hotch wanted you pouring over evidence we’d still be at the station. We check into motels for a reason.” Morgan gave him a look. “Come here and just relax.” 

Reid didn’t look up at him. Besides, no way in hell was he ‘going over there’ to where Morgan sat propped on the nearest bed. No. He looked harder at the pictures. “There’s something we’re missing and I can find it.”

“That’s what we all say. But you’ll drive yourself mad with that.” Morgan sighed, Reid’s determined frown drawing him from the bed to the opposite chair at the table. He looked at the pictures splayed out. Pictures of Caroline and her brother when they were young. It all had a sour feel to it, but Morgan hadn’t forgotten his discussion with Hotch, and he saw his opening. “I hate cases with kids,” he admitted softly. “I’m no good with them.”

Reid glanced up. “What do you mean?” Morgan seemed like a perfectly fine agent to him. Well, apart from all the alpha bullshit.

“I mean my objectivity is compromised on cases where kids have been abused.” Derek dared to look up at Reid. He was relieved to find that Reid hadn’t looked up at him. “I even lost it on a suspect on a case we were working once. Had to pull myself out of the field on that one.”

“Were you abused?”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “NO.” But he said it a little too immediately, a little too hard. Reid looked up and Derek resisted the urge to shiver at all of the intelligence that he could see in those eyes. He found he didn’t like it directed at him. “I’m just saying that, you know, we all have something that gets to us. We all lose our bearing at some time or another, during cases. Do you know what I mean?”

Reid frowned. “If you’re insinuating that I’ve lost my bearing on this case due to heat and need to pull myself from the investigation…”

“Do you?”

“ _No_ ,” Reid stressed. “I told you: I’m fine.”

“Reid,” Morgan tried to argue, “You barely look awake right now. Now I’m no omega but they sent me to the ‘special’ health class in school just like you. I know you have got to be exhausted after fighting off your symptoms. You’ve already said EHS messes you up, and I can bet from how fast you’ve been sucking down that ginger ale that you’ve already self-administered another injection, right?” Spencer clenched his jaw tighter but said nothing, which prompted Morgan to reach out across the table and carefully touch their hands together. The kid’s skin felt warm against his own. “What’s going to happen when we close in on this guy, huh?” he asked gently. “You’ll feel the same as you do now. Maybe a little worse. What if Hotch misreads some tic, or what if Rossi tries to negotiate and says the wrong damn thing? Things on this team go from controlled to very not-controlled in a heartbeat.”

“I’m not fresh from the academy,” Spencer countered. “I know what I signed up for.”

“Do you really think your response time won’t be affected if you have to draw? You know it will. All of your reactions will be and it’s dangerous.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” Reid argued weakly.

“Maybe. But we’re profilers; that’s how we roll.” Morgan didn’t want to say how he’d come to the assumptions that he had. He didn’t want to say anything about how his father had been an omega officer who’d taken the job too seriously too. But Morgan would be damned if he’d see another cop die for making that mistake. “I know omega biology Reid. My… my dad was an omega, and if he’d done what I’m telling you to do, then he might still be alive today. You don’t need to be out there working a case when you’re dealing with this. What you need is rest, water, and frankly: someone you trust to sit it out with you at home. Your body needs—”

“DON’T,” Reid cut him off sharply, “tell me about what I need.” He shot Morgan a hot look. “Just because you claimed me doesn’t give you the right to talk to me like we’re mated.” A sullen look shadowed his features. “I have spent my entire life listening to alphas with two thirds of my IQ tell me what they think I need.”

Morgan sobered. “I didn’t mean to…”

“No one ever ‘means to’. Well… sometimes they do but those are just jerks with no self-esteem. Everyone else just tells me I need to be knotted to calm my nerves, or to stay home where it’s safe, or some other well-intentioned, subliminally sexist nonsense.”

“I wasn’t trying to be sexist,” Morgan defended, maintaining his composure in the face of Reid’s blatant sexual reference. “Acknowledging our biology doesn’t have to be offensive.”

“I don’t want to acknowledge it at all.” Reid looked up sadly. “You know what I told JJ when I woke up from the first fever?”

“What?”

“I told her I wished I was beta like her, that I wished I could _pass_ , like it was 1960 and she was the light kid and I was… well, you know.”

“Don’t have to explain that one to me,” Morgan said wryly. “Hey,” he coaxed, “you think we all haven’t wished we were beta or SinGen at some point? Reid: I went into full on rut in front of my ninth grade crush, alright?”

“You?”

“Yeah, _me_. It happens, and when it does it sucks. But you’ve got to pull yourself back up. Come on now. I thought you were the proud omega genius who didn’t take shit from anybody. What happened to that guy?” Derek winked. “I was starting to like him.”

“He burned up,” Spencer mumbled miserably. “From fever.”

“Hey, you don’t have a fever anymore, remember? And if you do, _when_ you do in the future, I’ll be here.” He stood and went back to the bed that he'd taken for his own. “I’ve got that claim on you, just like you asked for. I’ve got your back now.” He pulled out his iPod and scrolled through it for something that could help him fall asleep. “Just promise me something pretty boy,” 

Reid rolled his eyes. Again with the names. “What?”

“That you won’t ignore yourself anymore. And promise me that if I tell Hotch that he can keep you on the case, that you’ll at least stay close by my side.”

Spencer frowned, not liking that deal at all but not having any leverage to secure a better one. Being treated like some incompetent child piqued his ire, but he could only nod glumly. “Fine. I won’t wander off. Happy?” Morgan gave a satisfied nod and put his headphones over his ears, eyes slipping shut. He sank back into the bed’s cushions, his handsome features relaxing peacefully far too fast for Reid’s liking. Reid scowled at the other agent’s composure. He was well aware that being in heat could make him moody, _but honestly_ , Spencer thought, how could Morgan be so comfortable with issuing orders? Did he think that was his right, to boss Reid around like that? 

He probably did, Spencer thought grumpily. He could just picture the alpha male, taking whatever he wanted from every omega he’d ever met since kindergarten; assuming control, issuing orders, pushing those weaker than himself around, flopping all confidently onto beds like that just settled the matter… Reid glanced surreptitiously to Morgan. The man had his eyes closed still, legs crossed and head bobbing to the music faintly. His bare feet tapped out the tune of whatever it was he was listening to. ...And there was just something that was so... _intimate_ about bare feet, wasn't there? Reid swallowed at the way Morgan’s arms folded casually behind his head, making his muscles strain against the fabric of his tee shirt… What had he called Morgan? Pushy? _Oh, he could push me onto a bed anytime. He would look so good naked…_ thoughts of Morgan being bossy morphed into thoughts about him being bossy in other ways, and Spencer sucked in air sharply through his nose as he realized that he’d somehow begun imagining sex with the other man. He squirmed in his seat, and froze. His underwear had dampened with a rush of slick. _Fuck._

Going to bed, Reid felt even more contemptuous of his roommate than before. “Stupid alphas,” Reid mumbled quietly, sure that Morgan was too ensconced in his music to overhear his childish grumbling. He burrowed his face into the covers in the direction opposite Morgan’s bed, trying to ignore the heavy ache in his core. “Over-reacting, overprotective, stupid alphas always bossing me around like they know what’s good for me.” Ugh, it was so predictable. “ _'He’ll tell Hotch he can keep me on the case,’_ ” Spencer muttered. “Why how _generous_ of you, Agent Morgan.”

“Reid?”

Reid froze.  


“Reid I know you’re awake.”

Mortification tightened every fiber of Reid’s being. Had he heard him?! Of course he had! Oh god. He forced himself to turn over to view Derek where he was laying in the opposite bed. “Yeah!?” he asked in somewhat of a squeak. “Ahem, erm, I mean: what?” Morgan’s smile was wide and white and genuine and it made Reid go weak at the knees. Or at least, it would have if he’d been standing. “What’s funny?” he asked.

“Nothin. You are, Pretty boy.”

Spencer opened his mouth to refute the name yet again, but found that for the first time, he might just like the sound of it. He bit his lip at the thought. “Derek?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“Do you feel um… better, in the room with me?”

Derek sighed. “I feel more relaxed. Like I don’t have to worry because I know you’re safe,” he admitted quietly. “There’s this itching thing at back of my brain that shuts off and leaves me alone. You?”

“I just feel…” _horny_ , Reid wanted to say. _Irrationally annoyed with you_ , was a viable option as well. But in the end he settled with, “I feel safe.” And strangely enough, that one was truest of all. He felt… settled, when Morgan was near him now. He felt soothed. Reid was a genius so he didn’t need a chemistry textbook to explain to him why he suddenly felt this way around the other man. But his IQ had nothing to do with the emotions running through him, and it had absolutely no bearing on his lack of experience in dealing with such feelings. They stared at each other from across the space between the beds for a long while, something about their gentle admissions bringing down a barrier between them. _This would be okay_ , they both thought. They’d figure it out as they went along. Reid sighed and rolled back in the direction of the wall. 

“Get some sleep kid,” Morgan could be heard saying softly. “I got your back.”

\---


	9. The Intimacies of Addiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My writing wasn't getting done fast enough, so I separated the chapter I was working on so I could have something to update with.

Reid stirred from a dream early in the morning. Somewhere in his half-awake brain, the genius reasoned that it must be before seven o’clock, because that was when he’d set his alarm for the next day and it hadn’t gone off. He lay there, cuddling against the warmth of the blankets as he tried to eke out just a few more moments of rest. There were birds twittering outside, but Spencer’s closed eyelids blocked out the sun enough for him to remain in his twilight state, to go on pretending that it wasn’t morning and the world wasn’t waiting for him to rejoin it. 

Marginally-conscious, Spencer smiled. His morning erection was pressed comfortably against the blankets and it felt glorious. Grunting happily, he bunched it closer about himself and thought that he very much loved staying in hotels. Somehow even half-way decent motels always seemed to have the softest, fluffiest bedding. Spencer wondered if Morgan’s bed felt this nice. 

_Mmm_ , he dreamt, it even _smelled_ nice. He let his nose go deeper into the pillow, seeking out that soothing, perfect scent. It smelled like spices, soap, and Sunday mornings. It made him feel safe, and happy. Like a soothing balm, it made the throbby ache in his middle more bearable. It made him not ever want to get up. Why would he get up anyway? He tried to remember but couldn’t. There was nothing beyond the bed, and he was very happy that he had absolutely no reason to wake up. Spencer reached out and clung to the pillows all around him that smelled so good. _Hmm_ , he thought, _they were warm, too_. Like right from the dryer. 

Something clicked over in Reid’s brain. He became more aware of himself, of the fact that it didn’t make sense that his pillows would be warm. And hey: why did the pillows feel hard? Oh and—oh! _That_ certainly wasn’t a bunch of blankets!

Reid’s eyes popped open to the sight of the back of what he quickly deduced to be Derek’s head. He sucked in a breath of air. Oh no. Assessing his predicament, Reid was blushing within seconds. He was currently lying right smack up behind Morgan. Not only that, but he was all but _clinging_ to him as well. While the mattress beneath him did feel quite soft, Spencer realized that it hadn’t been the bedding that he’d been rubbing himself against in his lazy half-sleep, it’d been Morgan! The man’s body warmed him like a heater, the curve of his backside providing the soft pressure that his erection had found. 

Spencer pulled himself back by mere inches, nearly afraid to move any more than that lest he wake Morgan. _What the heck?_ he thought, mortified. _Why was Morgan in his bed?!_ A quick glance to the room and Reid saw that the answer was: Morgan wasn’t in his bed. He was in Morgan’s.

Shock coursed through him, joining the persistent arousal that wouldn’t leave his gut. Together they formed a heady mix. Reid clenched his eyes shut in disbelief, performing a rapid mental inventory of himself: sweaty, rapid pulse, burgeoning hardness between his thighs. And what the hell? He was naked except for his briefs. _‘Compulsive shedding of clothing is a telltale sign of second-stage heat’_. The unforgettable quote rolled itself around in Reid’s brain. He’d read it once in ninth grade health class materials and never forgotten his ten year-old terror at the idea of ever finding himself in such a state. And now it was actually happening. 

It was a second fever, Reid realized with a wince. EHS never had as much of an effect during sleep. Somewhere in the night, his heat had broken through. His dampened underwear were proof enough of that. _Shit_ , he thought. _Where had he left the third course of suppressants?_ He needed them now. Spencer forced himself to open his eyes and confront the reality of the situation. 

…Okay, so they were in a bed. Not so bad in and of itself. Derek was still there, his large, muscled back like some imposing mountain laid before him. Reid acknowledged the obvious fact that he’d actually gotten up in the middle of the night, shed all but his underwear, and crawled into bed with his coworker—his extremely arrogant, annoyingly attractive, possibly sexist, coworker. Who’d also claimed him. Oh yeah, there was that too.

Spencer flashed back to the moment the afternoon previous when Derek had claimed him, had pressed him up against the SUV and done… IT. His eidetic memory helped him out there a bit. Like a movie replayed, he could see every detail in stark contrast. Morgan, breathing harshly against the skin of his neck, his hands kept firmly to himself until they weren’t; the lust that had risen to the surface at the scent of Alpha on him, over him, all around him and then, with the nick of a tooth, _in_ him. Spencer had gushed slick and he could distinctly recall the cloying scent of it. A scent that they could BOTH smell. He could even remember the pressure with which Morgan had sucked the blood to the surface of his skin to make him bruise. It had hurt, and what had he done? He had arched into it for more. 

A very particular _something_ hardened even further at the memory of that moment, of the harshness of it, the intimacy. The omega in him liked what Derek had done, even craved more. Problem was, Reid had a hard time figuring out just where his instincts ended and he began. What did _he_ want? He chanced a glance down to where he’d managed to separate his erection from touching Morgan’s butt. Morgan’s Sweat pants hugged his body nicely, showing off the toned muscles of his backside. His tee shirt had ridden up just enough to show a sliver of dark skin at the slope of his lower back, and Reid felt his mouth water. How the hell was he going to extricate himself from this situation without waking Derek?

“You awake pretty boy?”

Answer: he wasn’t going to extricate himself from anything. Reid winced in embarrassment the second he realized that Derek was already awake. Haltingly, he answered, “…Yes.” _Wish I wasn’t_. “How long have I been over here?”

“Dunno. You were with me when I woke up. The storm must have gotten bad because I’m pretty sure it knocked the power out a little while ago.”

Reid blanched, unseen. _A little while ago?!_ Morgan had been awake this whole time?! This whole time while he… he… freaking rutted against him and… Spencer couldn’t bear the thought of what else. His mortification couldn’t have been more complete. Not knowing what else to do, he swatted at Morgan’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you wake me up?!” 

“You seemed so peaceful. We don’t get enough shut eye on cases as it is. I didn’t want to wake you. Besides, you seemed to be having some good dreams.” 

“I… I don’t remember,” Spencer mumbled hurriedly. “Did I talk?” _Oh god please say no._

“No. You just made sounds. Little whimpers and groans. And you kept sniffing me and, well… and hugging me a lot.”

Spencer couldn’t help it, he groaned. He wanted the bedcovers to swallow him up and kill him. Eyes shut, he began his apology immediately, “Derek… _Morgan_ , I am so sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Hey.” Derek cut him off, his voice just that little bit less muffled to have Spencer opening his eyes. He’d turned over in the bed so that they were facing. Spencer swallowed heavily. “You do not have to apologize,” Derek said. “You can’t help what you do in your sleep.”

Spencer blushed fiercely and stared at the small gap of sheets between their bodies. Looking Morgan in the eye right now was the LAST thing he felt capable of doing. “You should have woken me up. I should… get dressed.” He went to push himself up and away, but a stilling touch came. Spencer’s breath got lodged somewhere high in his throat as he looked to see Derek’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t,” Morgan entreated softly. His face held a sort of pleading expression, as if he felt nearly as embarrassed by this whole situation as Reid did. “Kid, if you get up now and we spend the rest of today pretending not to know each other, how well is that going to work out for us, huh?”

Reid frog-faced. “I guess I don’t see any alternative.” Did he really _need_ to point out the obvious surplus of erections between their bodies? Surely Morgan had noticed. “What do you suggest?” he asked instead.

Morgan knew that what he was about to suggest would sound sexual. He also knew that Reid would understand that it wasn't.“Stay here for a minute. We like each other’s presence and you did things in your sleep that you couldn’t help; that’s not gonna change now so we might as well get used to it.” 

“Morgan…”

“And I didn’t kick you out of the bed either, because to some degree I wanted you with me.” He said it quickly, letting his words bypass Spencer’s humiliation to take effect. When the genius dared to look up at him, Derek knew to continue. “It’s the claim Reid, nothing to be ashamed about. We both knew there might be some… clinginess.” He shrugged. “But if it’s not hurting us and we both understand it, then we shouldn’t run away from this. Believe me, I wanted to run when I first woke up and realized…” Derek trailed off, not yet willing to disclose what he’d really thought of when he’d woken to Spencer at his back. How he’d nearly panicked at the thought of another man in the same bed, aroused and pressing against him no less. Derek pushed the memory away, instead saying, “Look, I know you feel good being close to me. I know because I feel exactly the same way.” He let his hand press just the tiniest bit more on Spencer’s arm. 

Spencer didn’t want to stay there, but he found himself yielding as Morgan’s hand guided him gently back down to the bed. They were laying mere inches apart, he realized once his head was even with Morgan’s. And despite all of the awkwardness, the closeness was… reassuring, as well. All the subtle nuances of Morgan’s scent that’d gone overlooked before were suddenly noticeable to him, and Spencer found that he _craved_ all of those small details like a drug. Just like the smell of a really good, old book, Morgan’s pheromones made him feel safe, happy, and _home_ , all at the same time. He had the errant thought that if pheromones could be bottled or wrapped up into a tidy little pill, they’d be the hottest new narcotic out there. Settled reluctantly back down next to Morgan, Reid asked, “So what? We’re addicted to each other now?”

That question provoked a chuckle from Morgan. He leant forward and rested their foreheads together in a move that was far too intimate for brand new coworkers in the bureau, but not nearly too intimate for two Gen2 men who’d allowed a claim. His inner alpha purred so strongly at the close contact with Reid, that it convinced his regular brain to just shut up and _go with it_. “Addicted,” he repeated. “You know I’ve never heard it put that way.”

“Well neither have I but when you consider the physiological underpinnings of a claim, they do bear a striking resemblance to drug addiction. The overstimulation of the mesocorticolimbic pathways, not to mention the—”

“Reid, REID.” Morgan fought not to roll his eyes at how damned _interested_ the kid looked once he got to explaining something scientific. “I get it. Brain receptors, pleasure pathways, whatever. I like your smells, you like mine.” Reid frowned at the heavily-simplified explanation. “That’s why I’m saying: let’s just lay here and enjoy it while we can, okay? It’ll do us both good mentally, and you know you can’t be hanging all over me in front of Hotch so you’ve got to get it out of your system now.”

“Hey!” Reid protested, “It’s not just me. You said so yourself: you feel it too.”

Morgan looked solemn, but then he nodded. “Yeah. I feel it too.” Both men relaxed a little more into the bedding at this mutual admission, and neither one flinched too badly when their bodies drew close enough to point out their erections. Just as Derek could feel Spencer’s hardness pressing against his hip, he knew that Spencer could feel his. “Just forget it,” Derek murmured to comfort the other man, to let him know that he was well aware that this, whatever ‘this’ was, was about more than base arousal. “Relax, pretty boy. I’m not reading anything into it.”

Those words shouldn’t have made him grow harder, but they did. Reid had a sudden personal crisis as he realized that, somewhere deep down, a part of him that wasn’t omega wanted Morgan to read something into it. Heaven help him. He glanced again at Morgan. The other man had shut his eyes, apparently content enough to let his guard down that way. Perhaps for Morgan this really was just platonic... Reid tried to imitate him. But with his eyes shut, he could almost feel _more_ of Morgan. His warm breath that came in steady puffs, his heavy hand on Reid’s arm, his intoxicating, spicy scent all around them. Reid wondered if Derek could smell him just as easily. It seemed that he could, because the older agent had quickly pressed his nose closer to Spencer’s hair, inhaling deeply as if it were the best thing he’d ever scented. The erection pressed against Reid’s hip had not diminished. If anything, it felt larger now. Derek’s entire body wasn’t touching his, but Spencer could sense it there before him, beckoning. He felt himself drawn to its larger mass as if by gravity; a moon to its planet. He desperately wanted to rub their faces together, like a couple of great, lazy cats.

Truthfully, any interaction that in any way involved _rubbing_ was probably a bad idea when it involved a coworker. But Spencer went against his better instincts, and let himself be lulled into the embrace for a little while. Derek was right: this felt good. So consequences be damned.

\---

“Spence?” Derek asked after quite some time of them lying silently together.

“Hm?” Spencer opened his eyes, feeling as if he’d been in a near meditative state. All he could think of was that his own nickname sounded wonderful coming from the alpha’s lips. “ _Spence_?” 

Morgan shrugged apologetically, sitting up. Spencer eyed the curve of his back appreciatively as he did. “We should get dressed,” Morgan said, eyeing the state of both of them. He was still in his sweats and shirt, and Reid had only the sheets and his briefs. Morgan tried not to stare at something that wasn’t his to stare at. At least not in a sexual way. He told himself he’d do well to remember that. “It’s almost seven.” He cleared his throat. “Hotch’ll want to reconvene. Get an early start. We can’t fall back asleep when the power’s out.”

“MmmIhave’nalarm’nmphone,” Reid mumbled, yawning as he tried to burrow himself further into the pillows that smelled so deeply of Morgan. And God, if it wasn’t a good smell. _Addiction_ , Reid thought again. “Morgan,” he wondered aloud, “What do I smell like?”

Derek nearly choked. He looked back over his shoulder at Reid, who had managed to fully submerge himself beneath the pillow that Morgan had been sleeping on all night. “What do you…” he frowned, pulling the pillow from atop Reid’s head in worry that he’d suffocate himself. “What do you _smell_ like?” he asked askance. He could think of a whole host of inappropriate answers to that question. Answers that would probably make Reid blush.

“You smell like spices,” Reid volunteered. 

“…What kind of spices?” 

“Well I don’t know. I can’t cook.”

Morgan chuckled. “Pretty boy, you’re something else.” Something in him relished the blush that his use of the forbidden name had blooming on Spencer’s face. He leaned closer, so that their faces nearly touched. Reid looked shocked. “You want to know what you smell like?” he asked.

Reid nodded. “What?”

Reluctantly, Derek put his face right up against the skin he’d marked the other day, inhaling powerfully. He pretended not to notice the moan Reid gave at his possessive gesture. “You smell…” Derek paused, “like paper, and coffee.” Reid smiled. “And like you need another shot.”

Reid lost his breath in a whoosh as Morgan sat back up away from him and offered him a hand. “I have another dose,” he offered. “In the bathroom. It’s going to make me feel like shit.”

“Well listen to you, cursing and everything.” Morgan reached for his phone, checking its screen as he slid from the bed. “Hotch says we’re meeting for breakfast in the diner downstairs. They have a generator.”

“Okay.” Spencer watched him walk off to the bathroom with a sense of loss. Now they would have to start the day, and that meant being around other people, which undoubtedly meant a greater degree of separation. Reid’s inner omega did not like that idea one bit. No, it would have very much preferred for the both of them to remain snuggled up in blankets for the rest of the day. He’d already managed to bunch the majority of the covers and pillows about himself, but there were still the blankets from the other bed… Vacantly, Reid recognized this urge as a form of nesting, but he shook it off. They had a case to work. They had to act normally, and giving in to their baser instincts wasn’t going to help them do that. Spencer forced himself to stand and throw on some clothes while he was alone in the room. Already, he knew he was indulging in Morgan more than he strictly had to be. And whether Morgan knew it or not, so was he. 

\---


	10. Don't Know How to Feel About This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated whether or not to put some notes explaining my 'verse's facts regarding alphas, betas and omegas marking/claiming/mating (they're three separate things here), but I have personal feelings regarding AN like that (namely that they're a literary cheat) and so I decided to refrain from outright explaining it here. Hopefully you guys understand what little information I do provide in-text, and the kinks can be worked out in later chapters. In more than one way! ;)  
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“Remember our deal: for the rest of this trip you stay out of the field entirely when you can, and close to me when you can’t. In return, I’ll tell Hotch he can keep you on the case.”

Reid nodded solemnly, gaze fixed antisocially on the floor ahead. It wasn’t as if eye contact was needed at this point. By now Morgan wasn’t talking to him so much as _at_ him anyway. They’d left the motel room to get to where the team was congregating for breakfast, and once they’d rejoined the larger world all bets were off when it came to the two of them sharing any closeness. Spencer tried to remind himself that this was the logical way for two men who hardly knew each other to act; that Derek wasn’t rebuffing him, he was just acting _normally_. But it was hard to remember those things when he’d just spent the last hour with his nose pressed against the other man’s skin, indulging his baser instincts. 

“What are we going to tell the rest of them?” Reid asked quietly. Morgan stopped their progress towards the hotel diner and gave him a _look_ —the first one he’d given him since they’d dressed and left the room. “What?” Reid insisted. “They’re going to notice the difference in the way we act around one another. It’s not normal behavior to SinGen people. JJ might understand but Prentiss and Rossi certainly won’t. I’m not even sure how much Hotch knows.”

“Not much,” Derek supplied.

“I don’t want them all just assuming we’ve slept together.”

He quirked a brow. “Haven’t we?”

“You _know_ what I mean.” Reid blushed, shrugging the collar of his oxford a little higher about his neck. “We should just tell them about the claim. The what and why of it at least.”

Derek sighed, rubbing his face. Sometimes he hated to think about the ways in which SinGen people must view behaviors that he himself would never give a second thought to. But Spencer was right. The team was bound to notice something was amiss, so Derek agreed. “Yeah, sure. I guess so. Just keep it PG, alright?” He snorted, hating to imagine the looks he’d get from Rossi or Hotch if either man knew what’d transpired that morning. Regular people would have seen their behavior as nothing short of bizarre. “They are not going to understand if you just blurt everything out to them the way you do, so maybe it’s better if I do the talking. I don’t want them to think…” Derek trailed off, glanced at Reid, and sighed. “Never mind. Let’s just get some breakfast. I’m starving.” 

He made to continue walking stiffly ahead, but was stayed by a surprising touch to his wrist. He looked back to see long fingers wrapped about his hand, beckoning him still. When he took in Spencer’s expression, he couldn’t ignore the downturn of his mouth, the way his eyebrows pinched behind the bridge of his glasses. The man looked pained, and Derek’s alpha couldn’t ignore it. “Reid?” he asked, stepping closer to Spencer to afford them some modicum of privacy. Spencer’s fingers hadn’t lessened in their grip, and Morgan could smell anxiety coming off of him in waves. “You gotta tell me what you’re thinking in that big brain of yours, because right now I really don’t know.”

“You said that this morning was to prevent awkwardness between us. You said that if we acknowledged the effects of your claim on me, that it would be better for both of us.” Reid spoke softly, nearly pleadingly. He was staring at the floor still and refusing to make eye contact—typical omega behavior. “I trusted that, so I stayed. But I’m not going to handle it well if you start rejecting me.”

Morgan blinked. Like a punch to his prideful alpha gut, he realized that Reid was telling him that he’d broken a promise. A promise of protection, of sorts. He’d told Reid that he could allow himself to be open with him, to indulge his craving for closeness, and that it wouldn’t backfire. Morgan had promised safety. And now Reid was telling _him_ that if he pulled away, he would go into withdrawal. 

_“When you consider the physiological underpinnings of a claim, they do bear a striking resemblance to drug addiction.”_

Morgan remembered Reid’s ramblings from earlier. Had he gotten the poor guy high just to let him drop? He softened his stance and came closer, drawing Reid’s face up with his free hand. He hadn’t meant to rattle the kid. “Hey,” he coaxed, forcing himself to shrug apologetically. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just trying for a semblance of personal space. I mean it’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything. I don’t want Hotch thinking he needs to start spouting off the official bureau policy on fraternization, you know?”

“I know.” As if to demonstrate his complicity in this goal, Spencer dropped their hands. Derek may have been attractive, but Spencer did not need to be cultivating a crush on a coworker. “I can act professional. The last thing I wanted with this job was for the people I work with to feel uncomfortable around me.” 

“Me too. I get it.” Derek hoped that Spencer could see that he was sorry. “How about this:” he asked, “we deal with the case first, and when it comes up, we _both_ tell them about us. We can make sure they understand what it is and what it isn’t, and I won’t let them give you shit for it if we accidentally start trying to ground each other.” Not that he thought his team members would ever give Reid a hard time for behaviors he couldn’t help, but all the same, Derek surprised himself with the strength of his conviction to protect the other man from ridicule. He _wanted_ to protect Reid. He wanted to take care of the man in any way that he might need taking care of. Morgan shuttered the unfamiliar emotions away from view with a solid blink. “Alright?” he asked firmly.

Spencer nodded. “Alright.”

\---

The motel’s adjoining restaurant was an old-fashioned diner, complete with formica tabletops and checkered linoleum floors. The rest of the team was already seated in a booth when they arrived, and Morgan was the last to round out their number as he slid in after Reid. He had a feeling that Spencer would have chosen to sit squeezed immediately next to him even if it wasn’t the only option left. Morgan couldn’t exactly say that he minded. 

Hotch had already ordered a large carafe of orange juice. It sat on the table next to the condiments and a stainless steel pitcher, to which Reid pointed and identified, “Coffee?”

Hotch nodded, watching as Spencer poured himself a steaming cup and then proceeded to cut it with an excessive amount of sugar. “Rough night?” he asked casually.

Reid’s eyes shot up in alarm. “What?” he nearly squeaked. He glanced to where Rossi sat studying the menu, and over to JJ and Prentiss, who seemed engaged in conversation. Nobody was paying attention. Despite this, Spencer immediately panicked, irrationally assuming that his boss must somehow know about all of the awkward, unintentionally intimate things that’d occurred since the previous day. “Um no. Why would it have been?” His tone of voice was stupidly defensive.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. “With the storm. The power being out and all…”

Reid blushed. “Oh, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It didn’t ah, it didn’t cause us any trouble. We were already asleep before the storm got too bad.”

“Speak for yourself,” Morgan murmured conspiratorially. “I was up half the night listening to your—” Spencer shot disbelieving, betrayed eyes over to the other man “—snoring,” Derek finished placidly. He didn’t react to the glare that Spencer shot him, but was unable to restrain his hiss at an annoyed kick to his shin. It had to be disguised into a vigorous sip of orange juice. _Ouch!_ “Mm…Yeah, he uh, snores.”

“You two want any breakfast?” Rossi joined in, looking up from the menu. “I need somebody to split the Deuce’s breakfast with: two eggs, two sausage, two ham steaks, two biscuits, two waffles, two… well just two of everything on the menu, basically.” He looked from Reid, to Morgan and back. “Any takers?”

Reid immediately raised his hand in polite refusal. “No thanks. I’ll just stick to coffee.”

Rossi shrugged. “Morgan?”

Morgan nodded distractedly, saying, “Yeah, I’m in.” His attention was on Reid, however. The other man looked green around the gills and like he’d rather be up in bed than sitting in a diner booth. “Kid?” Morgan asked quietly, “You okay?”

Reid shot him a look. “I told you,” he whispered into a cautious sip of coffee, “it makes me sick.”

No need to explain what _“it”_ was. Derek felt sympathetic as he watched the kid wince and take another dutiful sip of his coffee. No wonder he had no appetite. Derek remembered how miserable the other man had seemed the night previous, sitting in the hotel room sucking down his ginger ales… Now, the steam from Spencer’s cup fogged up the lenses of his glasses, reminding Derek of why he was wearing them in the first place—headaches. It almost made Morgan feel guilty for finding the outdated frames adorable. Under the table and out of sight, he allowed his hand to touch Spencer’s leg. It wasn’t a come-on, it was comfort, and Derek knew that the contact would please him. Sure enough, Spencer’s attention went from his coffee to the larger man sitting squished beside him. Derek’s hand squeezed just slightly, and he whispered, “I’m here, you know? If you’re feeling awful and need something, just tell me.”

Spencer couldn’t help but to lift a little at the friendly reassurance. Not like Derek could do anything, but was a nice change, feeling as if he had somebody on his side. Somebody who understood. Reid smiled sadly, thinking that while he would have preferred to avoid this whole mess altogether, if he _had_ to be tied to someone this way… maybe Morgan wasn’t the worst person for it to be.

“…You guys?”

Spencer and Derek tore their gazes away from each other, suddenly aware that the table was dead silent, the previous gentle hubbub of breakfast having stalled as the rest of the team failed to overlook Morgan and Reid’s silent communication. The food had arrived, and the waitress placed down plates of eggs and French toast for everyone who’d ordered it. Forks got picked up as if they’d eat, but it was quite clear that everyone was more interested in what Morgan and Reid would say. Beneath the table, Derek removed his hand from where it was touching Spencer. “What?” he asked. It was obvious that they’d missed something.

Hotch was looking the two of them over closely. It didn’t escape his attention that Reid was allowing Morgan further into his personal space than he’d allowed anyone else on the team. “I was saying,” Hotch repeated, gesturing with his phone, “We just got word from the M.E.”

“About what?” Reid asked.

“When they went back to reexamine the bodies of the first four victims for needle marks, they also turned up traces of saliva and ejaculatory fluid.”

Reid frowned. “But that doesn’t fit the profile at all. He's too emotionally invested in his victims. He goes to great lengths to keep them from pain, even when he kills them. Raping them would essentially nullify all of that.”

Hotch nodded. “Yes, but _he’s_ not raping them.”

“A partner?” Morgan asked, thinking that’s where this was headed. “It’s unlikely Hotch. This guy has little to no social skills.”

“There’s no partner. The DNA they found on, and _in_ , the Copeland siblings and the Wright twins wasn’t from our unsub,” Hotch explained gravely. “It was from the victims themselves.”

…Everyone blinked at the pronouncement for a moment, and then Emily was the first to make a face when understanding dawned on her. “ _Oh god_ ,” she bemoaned. “THAT’s the motivation. He’s forcing them to commit acts of incest with each other!”

Reid felt more than saw Morgan tense up next to him. They each turned their heads just slightly to look at one another, their shared gaze communicating one question: how had they not seen this before? Morgan spoke again first, “We should have thought of this.” It seemed so obvious. But then again, everything was in retrospect. Morgan shook his head in dismay. “If Elijah can make another brother and sister love each other the way that he loves Caroline, then it normalizes the way he feels. He isn’t the one who’s in the wrong for wanting their relationship to exist, Caroline is for denying it. That’s why he takes the sisters, even though we knew he identified more with the brothers. He—”

“—needs them for the other stand in,” Reid said, finishing Morgan’s thought. “It’s known as sexual supplacement, or sexual surrogacy; acting out one’s desires through a second party—although in this case it’s realized through two _third_ parties.” Reid splayed his fingers out in the air as he explained, “It’s actually not uncommon as a therapeutic tool among traumatized or injured individuals. But again,” he shrugged, “They are usually involved in the sex taking place, and they… tend to seek out a therapist instead of kidnapping people.”

“Christ,” Rossi astounded. “Using them as puppets to play out his twisted fantasy about his own sister.” He looked grossed out for a moment, before going back to normal and taking another healthy bite of his half of the deuce’s breakfast. Reid watched him chew a mouthful of ham steak with a slight feeling of nausea. “And I’m guessing,” Rossi swallowed, “when these kids hit a wall in their performance of ‘sibling lovers’, he kills them.”

“We did say that he kept abducting new victims because he wasn’t getting his needs met,” JJ agreed. “Clearly there are some boundaries that the first two sets of siblings were unwilling to cross.” Alarmed, she looked to Aaron as it occurred to her, “Hotch, we can’t let news of this reach Shawn and Emma Hastings’ parents. Their kids are still missing. They don’t need to be thinking about what this guy could be making them do.”

“No,” Hotch agreed. “No families don’t tend to cooperate with investigations for long when you start accusing their children of incest. We keep the detail about the fluids to a need to know basis for now.”

Reid set his mug down with a disappointed ‘clank’, Hotch’s repetition of the word _“fluids”_ effectively ruining even coffee for him that morning. 

\---

Derek loitered in the hallway outside the diner’s bathroom, feeling ridiculous for doing so but not ridiculous enough not to. He reasoned with himself that he wasn’t being possessive, he was just doing what any good coworker would do. Reid had seemed so sick at breakfast, and now he’d been in the men’s room for going on ten minutes. Morgan was halfway worried that he was in there throwing up what little he’d managed to eat.

He was just about to rationalize going in there to check on him, when Rossi appeared in the hallway. Morgan nearly groaned at the sight of him. Rossi wasn’t the person Derek felt like being cornered by right now. More than anyone else on the team, David had given both him and Spencer a lot of odd looks during breakfast. He walked up and leant against the wall next to Morgan. He exuded a practiced air of companionable silence, but it was familiar to Morgan and he knew that some sort of sage observation would soon be coming his way. Rossi didn’t disappoint.

“You and Reid seem much more comfortable with one another today.”

Derek shrugged. “Yeah, he’s okay.” 

“Mhmm.”

Derek glanced peevishly aside. “Just say what you’re gonna say so we can get on with this case.”

“I’ve already figured out that this is something to do with the two of you being Gen2, so you might as well cop to that much.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Come on Morgan: what’d you do to him?” 

Morgan blinked at the abrupt question. “Do to him?” he repeated. “Why do you automatically assume that I’ve—”

“I’ll stop you there,” Rossi interrupted. “I know you did something because of the way JJ had to whisk Reid away the second you got him alone behind a car for two minutes. I know you did something because all through breakfast the kid couldn’t keep his eyes off of you and you couldn’t keep your hands off of him.” Rossi pointedly ignored Morgan’s startled frown. “AND,” he finished, “I know that _you_ did something, because _you’re_ the one who’s alpha, and alphas are the doers, aren’t they?” He shrugged, “Not like I know a lot about that but I know he’s got a hickey the size of Rhode Island on his neck, not quite entirely concealed by _your_ tie.”

Morgan grimaced. _Reid was wearing his tie?_ Guiltily, Morgan glanced down to his own chest. Sure enough, there was Reid’s maroon tie from the previous day, knotted in the perfect Windsor around Morgan’s own throat. Instantly, Derek knew that everyone at the breakfast table must have noticed that little detail. They were profilers after all. He looked back up to Rossi, who didn’t seem like he was waiting for any sort of confirmation that something strange was going on, just an explanation of what it was. Sighing, Derek tried, “Would you go with it if I just said we had sex?”

Rossi raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that what happened?” He looked doubtful.

“…No,” Morgan admitted, realizing how deep in it he was if his coworkers believing him to be in an illicit sexual relationship with Spencer was less personal than the truth. “No it’s not what happened. Reid went into heat yesterday.”

Rossi looked unprepared for this revelation. He also looked the slightest bit uncomfortable. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“Oh come on. You’ve got to know some things about omegas.”

“Well sure, but…” Rossi floundered with a vague gesture. “Heat, you said. So then… you did have sex?”

“Was that a question?” But Morgan shook his head. “No. We didn’t.”

“But, you said—”

“I said he went into heat. I didn’t say I fucked him!” Derek growled out sternly. Rossi’s patronizing eyebrow raise was all it took to have Morgan abashed. He paused, before launching into the explanation that’d been so difficult in coming. “He went into heat in an unfamiliar and unsafe place. Omegas have to be careful to be at home with people they trust when they’re in heat because of the way it makes them act.” Derek declined to elaborate on just _how_ it made them act. He supposed Rossi could guess. “And they stay away from strange alphas who might catch their scent and be… affected.”

“You’re saying he was in danger of being raped,” Rossi stated bluntly, yet not unsympathetically. 

“Basically.”

“So what exactly transpired between you two?”

Morgan hesitated to explain, mostly because they were still standing just outside the men’s bathroom where anyone could walk by. But Rossi was looking at him now like he suspected Morgan of taking advantage of the new guy, and Derek couldn’t let that pass. “It’s complicated,” he hedged. “We—Gen2 people—we can attach to each other in certain ways. We can imprint.”

“Like baby birds,” Rossi suggested. 

But Morgan shook his head. “No. Don’t ever make comparisons between Gen2 and animals. People bring us down by calling us animals.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know you didn’t. Just a little advice on the political correctness front.” Rossi nodded his understanding, and Morgan continued, “So yeah, the deal is that I attached to Reid. In sort of a mid-level way called a claim.”

“Mid-level?” Rossi rolled the words around in his mouth as if they had a foreign taste. “What’s that supposed to mean?

Morgan huffed. “I knew this would be a long story. Look: an alpha like me can mark, claim, or mate with another Gen2—usually an omega. Marking is almost always platonic. Mating is never platonic, and claiming is… somewhere in-between, depending on the circumstance.”

To his credit, Rossi didn’t pry any further as to what Morgan and Reid’s circumstance was. “So this claim,” he said instead. “It involves gigantic love bites I take it?”

Morgan blushed. "It's not a love bite. There’s this thing that’s in our necks," he muttered. “I don’t know how or why, but it—”

“Ever hear of _Hashimoto’s_ gland?” Both Morgan and Rossi looked up, surprised to see Spencer standing right next to them. Fresh out of the bathroom, he still looked a bit green around the edges but calm nonetheless. Rossi recovered first, shaking his head in the negative. Spencer elaborated, “It’s a glandular structure present at the base of the neck, named after the endocrinologist who discovered it of course.” Rossi’s hand shot to touch the referenced spot on his own neck, but Reid shook his head. “No you don’t have one. Well,” he corrected himself, rambling, “technically you do but in ninety percent of the species it’s a vestigial organ and very, very small. In fact: did you know that it is so negligible that until the 1980’s scientists didn’t even know that SinGens had them at all? It took modern lab equiptment to be able to—”

“Spence,” Derek cut in, halting the genius from starting in on an all-out rant. “Maybe just tell him what it is? Briefly?”

Spencer sighed but acquiesced. “In us, it’s big enough to feel by touch. It’s where our high levels of pheromones come from, and it’s also part of why we can sense things that regular people can’t.” 

“But why did he _bite_ you?” Rossi asked, sounding somewhat disturbed at the thought. “Was it some display of dominance?” He glared at Morgan, “I thought Hotch told you to stop bullying the kid.”

“I wasn’t bullying him!”

“Excuse me?” Spencer asked indignantly. “You don’t think you were being a bully to me?”

“I… that’s not the point.” Derek looked back to Rossi. “The point is that Reid was in trouble and I claimed him—I bit him to attach my scent to him and create a signature that other alphas would recognize and shy away from.”

“You marked your territory,” Rossi offered in summation. 

Morgan and Reid’s reactions to this statement were markedly different. Morgan nodded in relief that Rossi understood, and said “Yes, exactly.”

But Reid did the opposite. He shook his head immediately, almost fervently, insisting, “No. I’m not his territory.” He glared at Morgan when the darker man looked over in surprise. “I’m not,” Reid insisted. “This was just a precaution; just something we did to keep me safe. It was a favor on your part. It’s not personal.”

Morgan wanted to pipe up about how nothing about that morning in the motel room had been impersonal. But he knew full well that Reid remembered it just as well as he did, and Derek didn’t want to embarrass the other man by mentioning what they’d done in bed together. “We’re chemically attached to each other, boy wonder. How is that not real?” he said instead. Morgan regarded Reid carefully as he fidgeted in front of him. “Hey,” he coaxed a bit more softly, still very aware of Rossi’s presence. “I thought we agreed: no rejecting it.”

Reid’s eyes finally looked up at Morgan, and he seemed to soften. “I’m still not ‘yours’,” he reaffirmed in a quiet but solid voice, glancing self-consciously over at Rossi. Spencer had never wanted to give up his identity to some possessive alpha. That was what all omegas did after all, and look where it got them: pregnant and nowhere worth being. “I’m not anybody’s territory.”

“Right, okay,” Morgan agreed. “Got it.” Something in him wanted to rear its head at the suggestion that Reid wasn’t his, but Morgan pushed it down. Spencer was right, after all. This claim was simply an imprint left over from a favor between coworkers. Nothing more. Given time and new sexual partners, the effects would eventually fade away. Morgan’s alpha hated the thought of that. Almost as if in punishment towards said inner alpha, Morgan did nothing to intervene as Rossi struck up another line of Gen2-centric conversation with Reid and they began to stroll off together. Morgan felt the skin at the back of his neck prickle when Rossi touched briefly—and in all likelihood platonically—at Reid’s shoulder to express understanding of the situation. And though Morgan knew that he would never, ever, purposefully urinate on another person, he was mortified to recognize the urge to do so as Reid walked closely with Rossi back out into the restaurant. 

\---


	11. The Claim or the Case

As far as matters with Reid, the BAU, and this case were concerned, Morgan had made his recommendation to Hotch. Whether Hotch would take it or not, remained to be seen.

“Assignments,” Hotch announced in front of them all once they’d gathered out in the diner’s parking lot. “Rossi, I think you and I should head over to the medical examiner’s office and take a look at all the evidence that came in from the amended autopsy report.”

“Sure thing.”

“What happened to Reid yesterday?” Emily whispered. She was standing back with Morgan, keeping her voice low as their boss issued directives. “What’s up with the two of you? Is he sick?”

Morgan tensed. “Ask Rossi.”

“I’m asking you.”

He eyed her, looking tired but sympathetic. “He’s omega Emily. Shit hit the fan.”

Emily’s lips parted in shock. “Oh. I didn’t know.”

“Neither did Rossi.”

“Or JJ I guess,” Emily said. 

Derek put effort into not making a face at that. He, for one, didn’t exactly approve of JJ’s efforts to slip under the radar at work. But he certainly wasn’t going to say anything to out his coworker now. “Yeah, he mumbled, “I guess. Anyway, Reid was in… heat, and he needed protection. So I protected him, and now we’re just… we’re just a little more attached to each other now, okay?”

Smart woman that she was, Prentiss could see that Morgan didn’t want to talk too much more about this topic, so she nodded quickly, said “Okay,” and shut her mouth. Hotch continued doling out the assignments for the time being. Reid was to go with JJ to the police station and work over the evidence that they’d already collected. Rossi would hit up the Medical Examiner’s office with Hotch, while Morgan and Prentiss were meant to work through the list of people who might be able to shed further light on their unsub.

“Start with his coworkers,” Hotch was telling Morgan and Prentiss. “His sister claims he’s isolated, but you may be able to find a friend or confidant if you pry deep enough in other waters.”

Prentiss nodded, ready to head off and get started. But Morgan lingered back. “Uh, Hotch,” he said, ticking his head meaningfully to the side. “Can I have word?” Morgan made a motion to indicate that he meant in private, and the two of them walked away from everyone else. 

“What is it?” Hotch asked, trying not to sound impatient. 

“I take it that you decided to keep Reid on the case.”

“Yes. I still believe he is an asset to this team, even with his present circumstances.”

Morgan nodded. “I’m glad.”

“Glad?” Hotch looked doubtful. “Just yesterday you were urging me to remove him from the case. What’s changed?”

“I never wanted him off the case. I just told you that I had to talk with him to decide if he could stay on the case,” Morgan corrected. “And I did—talk with him that is. And I think he’s fine.”

“But you don’t want me to put him in the field.” 

“No. It’s not safe,” Morgan responded immediately. “He could get hurt.”

Hotch scrutinized Morgan. “You’re worried about his safety?” Aaron was sure now, that something beyond his comprehension was going on. Trying not to sound judgmental, he asked, “Morgan I need to know: what is there to this claim thing you did with him?”

Derek sighed, realizing that he was going to have to share a little more than he was strictly comfortable with. “I made a commitment to him yesterday Hotch,” he said. “A commitment to protect him. It’s not strictly a choice it’s…” he paused trying to think of the best way to explain it. He settled on, “It’s a biological connection that we have now. We’re synced up on a physical level.” Morgan saw how Aaron’s eyes flitted politely away at his use of the word ‘physical’, and so he added, “It’s not a sexual thing, it’s just… intimate, I guess. I’m going to feel a lot of things around him now and he’ll feel things about me, and we can’t help that. It will—it already has—changed the way we act around each other.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Hotch deadpanned, thinking back to the physical proximity between the two at breakfast. “But do I really need to keep him out of the field?” Hotch was somewhat worried now that perhaps there was truth to what people said about omegas working in high-stress jobs. Would Reid be reliable when he wasn’t going through… heat? Aaron wanted to give everyone a chance, but he couldn’t be putting his team at risk…

“One of the things I feel most is that I have to protect him.” Morgan explained. He shrugged, looking abashed, “Even if he might not necessarily need it.”

Hotch regarded his agent carefully, trying to process this. Initially, he just felt exasperated. Never, never had he realized just how much being Gen2 affected Morgan’s life. If he’d known in the first place how much trouble all of these alpha-omega dynamics could cause on his team, he might have reconsidered his decision to hire two of them, or at least reconsidered Reid. Aaron felt awful for thinking that way, but it passed through his mind nonetheless. “I appreciate your honesty Morgan,” he managed. “I’ll send Reid to the station nonetheless, just to be sure on this first case.”

“I’d like to go with him.”

Hotch frowned. “You’re effective in the field Morgan.”

“So is Reid, but he’s staying put to go over files.”

“He has far more analytical skills than yo—”

Morgan cut him off. “But JJ has better people skills. You should send her in my place to do the interviews.” When this didn’t seem to be moving Hotch, Morgan added somewhat embarrassedly, “Look: I think it’ll help the kid to be physically close to me.”

Aaron paused, but something in his features changed and he managed a nod. “Alright, you stay and JJ goes.”

Satisfied, Morgan gave a grateful nod and went to go tell JJ the new plan. But before he could get far Aaron called to him, “But Morgan?” Morgan turned back to look and Hotch added, “You won’t always be with him on this job, and that has to be okay. He needs to know that as well as you.” Morgan nodded in understanding and walked off. Hotch was left to regroup with Rossi, all the while burying his possibly prejudicial concerns about Dr. Reid’s competencies in the field until a more suitable time could be found for such worries. 

\---

“So are you going to tell me what you said to Agent Hotchner to get him to keep me on this case?”

Derek looked up to where Spencer was returning with a cup of coffee and a loaded question. The genius had run straight for the sideboard once they’d arrived back at the police station. Derek hadn’t had the heart to enforce Hotch’s cap on Reid’s caffeine intake. Indeed, he couldn’t stop the errant thought that Spencer looked kind of adorable, cradling his mug and blowing into it so carefully. Once again, his glasses were steamed up, and Derek was struck with the urge to go over and physically remove them. Morgan shook his head, looking back down to the array of photos and papers spread on the conference table. “What’s it matter what I said?” he evaded. “Hotch isn’t going to take you off the case. Isn’t that good enough?” 

Spencer made a vague sound of discontent in his throat, but let it go. He’d have liked to know just what Morgan had told their boss about them, but it seemed that the other agent had clammed up on this particular issue. Reid had a funny feeling that clamming up might be a common behavior of Morgan’s. Sitting himself back down at the table, Spencer wiped the steam from his glasses and once again began perusing the photographs that had been collected from the unsub’s apartment. Morgan was supposed to be reading the journals with a fresh pair of eyes.

“…I told him about your interview of Catherine Forrester. I told him about the way you’ve predicted elements of the kidnappings before we ever found them.”

Reid glanced up. Morgan’s attention was firmly fixed on him. “Oh?” he asked.

Morgan nodded. “You’ve done good. Better than me sometimes. Even Hotch. I told him you have intuition that nobody on this team does. He didn’t really understand…” Morgan shrugged, “but neither do I really. I think he thought I was suggesting that you have abilities directly related to your being omega.”

“Were you suggesting that?”

Morgan squinted, embarrassed that he’d never really thought about this before. “I think so,” he said. “I mean we’re better at reading people no matter what because of our sensitivity to pheromones, but I do think you have a gift for profiling.” 

“Thank you.” Reid looked quite pleased at having received such an unadulterated compliment from the other man. “I think that might be the first, really nice thing you’ve said to me.”

Derek grinned. “Don’t worry,” he teased, “I say most of my nice things to Garcia.” But inside he was thinking that if it made the kid look so warmly at him like that, then maybe he’d have to start coming up with more excuses to praise him.

“You and her seem to have an interesting relationship,” Spencer commented noncommittally. He wasn’t sure just how much he was hoping to hear that the two were not an item. The saucy phone conversation between them the previous day had been somewhat suggestive of a romantic attachment, but when Derek laughed and said she was like a third sister to him, it made something in Spencer happy. “I’m not sure how to act around her,” he admitted with an awkward grin of his own. 

Derek only shook his head in humor. “Not many people are, pretty boy. Penelope’s one of a kind. A real genius in her own way, once you get to know her.”

“That’s not uncommon in the international hacker community,” Spencer commented.

“‘International hacker community’?” Morgan repeated, amused. Reid was using his excited, interested voice once again. “Who told you about her past as a hacker? You can’t have a statistic on that to rattle off, too?”

He did. “People fluent in coding are more than twice as likely to have a genius-level IQ than the general population.” Spencer relayed expressively. “Out of all criminal populations, those convicted of felony computer offenses are the most likely to speak multiple languages, have attained advanced degrees in mathematics, and to play a musical instrument.”

Morgan bit his lip. “Is that so?” Though he really had no use for the information Reid had just given him, Derek found that he quite liked hearing him tell it. The kid was obviously passionate about learning, and Morgan was discovering more and more what a nice thing it was to see Spencer’s face light up with interest, his fingers go on an excited tantrum of a dance through the air as he fought to make his words match the rapid pace of his thoughts. Trying for a playful retort, Derek joked, “Careful. You keep calling her a genius and all of us regular people will feel left out.” He gave Spencer what could not be called anything other than a smirk, and not an incredibly unfriendly one at that. Morgan had the realization that it was the sort of way he’d look at a woman that he was trying to make headway with in a bar. He froze. _Was he flirting?_ Ignoring the attraction that was fast leading him into such behavior, Morgan shifted his attention back to the work at hand. “I’m about halfway through,” he said, waving the current journal that he was on in the air. “This guy writes a lot about nothing and a little about a very-disturbing-much.”

Spencer blinked at the abrupt shift back to business. “Yes,” he agreed. “The obsession with his sister is clear, but let me know if you find any details on the kidnappings in there.” Reid pulled a few of the most recent photos closer to take another look. Pensively, he drawled, “We have to figure out where he’s keeping them.”

“I still don’t see why I have to reread this stuff when you have an eidetic memory,” Morgan mumbled quietly. Reid ignored him.

Many pictures of Caroline had been examined and slid to a far pile, deemed unimportant to the investigation. A second, smaller pile held a few possibly relevant pictures. One was a photo that Derek had taken out of a book in the unsub’s childhood home. The content was a bit more graphic than the rest, and so Reid had chosen to flip it over. On the back was a hand-written string off numbers and letters, totaling six. Spencer committed them to memory, should they ever become relevant. Other photos of greater interest showed the place where the kidnapped siblings were being held. These were kept in a third pile, which was the one that Spencer was currently reexamining. 

There was a long, narrow room with a Plexiglas enclosure at one end. And like two frightened lab rats, the victims of Elijah Forrester huddled in the enclosure in each shot. The walls had seams in them every few feet. “There’s a striation pattern in the walls,” Spencer mumbled. He squinted as he scrutinized the photos, trying to make sense of the details. The room looked newly-constructed, with a plain floor and no visible doors or windows. The harsh fluorescent lighting added to the eerily lab-like atmosphere of the space. “We can’t tell how far back the room extends beyond the camera’s point of view,” Reid pointed out. “It could be even longer. It’s a strange layout. Most houses have rooms with dimensions closely echoing the golden ratio. Humans tend to feel safest when a room’s width nearly matches that of its depth,” Spencer informed. “Long, narrow rooms like this throw off our internal perception of control over a situation and so people get nervous or feel on edge in them. It’s an unusual construction to find in houses.”

“It’s probably not a house,” Morgan concluded. “It looks clinical, like a lab or something. It could be in a medical building or on a campus. _Maybe_ a storage facility of some sort.”

Reid shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” 

“Our unsub is an isolated introvert,” Reid reminded. “And the motive is personal. He’s going to want to be someplace private with his victims, someplace that’s safe to him. I don’t think he’d set them up in a lab.”

Derek frowned, not knowing why Spencer felt this way but knowing that he didn’t agree with that analysis. The room was clearly lab-like. “He’d set them up wherever he thought he could get away with it,” Derek corrected firmly. “Maybe a warehouse if he retrofitted it. The striation patterns on the walls could be metal. What house do you know of that has metal walls like that?”

Reid shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Eyeing the genius, Derek added, “And you said yourself that houses aren’t built with specifications like this. This looks more like a bunker than somebody’s bedroom.” He waited for Reid to acknowledge the truth of his words, and eventually he did. 

“It’s just…” Spencer hesitated, but Morgan had caught his eye and he felt compelled to finish, “With the amount of shame and guilt this unsub must be feeling… It doesn’t make sense to me that he’d venture far from home. He doesn’t have the confidence.” Reid looked hesitantly at Morgan. “I know what it’s like to want to hide away from something that’s in yourself.”

Derek swallowed. Presumably, the kid was referencing his own struggle with being omega. “And?” he asked.

Reid was silent for a long moment, then said, “Our house in Nevada had a dining room that was built kind of awkwardly in the middle of it, closed off from the rest of the rooms. My parents never cooked much so my mother turned it into a library. Naturally, that made it my favorite place to be.”

Derek smirked. “Naturally.”

“But when she got sick, all the books kind of… slowly migrated to her room.”

Derek wasn’t sure where this was going, but he could definitely tell that Reid was sharing something private with him. He hadn’t forgotten Reid’s mention of his mother having had schizophrenia. “Kid?” he asked quietly, reaching out to place a hand on Reid’s own. Reid wasn’t looking at him, but the physical contact wasn’t rebuffed.

“I started having heats when I was thirteen. I was supposed to be headed to CalTech for a degree in physics, yet my own biology was the only thing I’d ever been willfully ignorant of. Because I was terrified of it.” By this point Spencer was nearly whispering. “I wanted to go to college _so badly_. But this kept me home. A whole year in an empty library. I’d go in there, I’d throw in half the blankets in the entire house and lock myself in. I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time but I knew that that was where I needed to be. In that room that was safe, and secluded, and home.” Spencer looked up finally, and hoped that Morgan would understand. “ _That’s_ why I think Elijah’s keeping them close to home. At their most vulnerable, animals burrow. I think we need to look at the Forrester’s childhood house again.”

Morgan sat back in dismay at where Reid’s story had led to. “We’ve already been all over that place with a fine-tooth comb,” he said. “There’s no way that house had a room like that built into it and we didn’t notice.” 

Reid was a second away from opening his mouth again to argue further, when Morgan’s cell phone went off. He reached for where it lay on the table, answering, “Morgan.”

Hotch’s voice came over the phone, though Spencer didn’t know that. All he knew was that after a brief moment of listening to whatever the voice on the other end of the line was relaying to him, Derek’s face grew dark. “Right,” he said, tone low. “Were there signs of a struggle?”

Reid’s attention snapped firmly to Morgan and the call. After a moment spent looking like he was deep in thought, Morgan continued talking, “Well we have no way of knowing if she went voluntarily or not. Either way, it’s a problem. I knew we should have had the cops sitting on her house.”

Reid frowned, not liking being left out of the conversation. _Her?_ Was Morgan talking about Caroline Forrester? 

“Yesterday,” Morgan was replying over the line, ostensibly to a question just asked. “I was going to suggest a detail when we finished interviewing her, but…” he paused and looked self-consciously over to where Reid sat. Averted eyes and a low tone of voice were a poor substitute for privacy as he mumbled, “With all that happened yesterday... I got distracted. I forgot to say anything.”

Reid frowned, not liking the feeling he got that Morgan maybe wished he wasn’t there to overhear anything. Derek finished up the phone call succinctly, saying goodbye and hanging up. Spencer couldn’t restrain himself from asking, “Was that Hotch?”

“Yeah.” Morgan looked grim.

“What’s going on?”

“Caroline Forrester’s missing.”

\---  


“This is my fault.”

Hotch glanced sideways at Morgan, “You can’t know that,” he said seriously. They were standing back out in the motel parking lot. The search of Caroline Forrester’s townhome had little in the way of evidence. Only her babbling fiancé and a slew of belongings packed away in moving boxes were left. Now another fruitless day was coming to a close and Hotch was faced with having to ensure that his best agent didn’t go off on a tangent of self-blame. Morgan tended to do that whenever things went spectacularly wrong. “She could have gone off on her own,” Hotch said. “You said she was upset by Reid’s questions.”

“ _My_ questions,” Morgan clarified. “Reid got through to her, not me.” He clenched his lips tight in frustration at the thought of how he could have prevented this. “Damn it Hotch, I had it on the tip of my tongue twice to make mention of a police detail. But Reid went into heat and I forgot all about it.” 

“You’re blaming him?” Hotch asked, sounding genuinely curious as opposed to accusatory.

“What? No. I’m not— I’m not blaming him Hotch. I’m just saying why I slipped. I know it’s why. If the kid hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t been preoccupied thinking about him, worrying, _smelling him_ , then there would have been eyes on that house.” Morgan rubbed his face in agitation. “He has her, I know it. Our profile of this guy is solid. The third kidnapping obviously gave him the confidence he needed to finally go for his real target, and now he has her and we don’t know what he’s doing to her. Hell, his timeframe for keeping the siblings is already past. The bodies could already be dumped somewhere.”

Hotch didn’t bother to try and not look grim. The situation was grim, after all. “You can’t blame yourself,” he reiterated. “And you can’t blame Agent Reid either.”

“Blame me?”

Reid was standing at the door to his and Morgan’s motel room, having come out at just the wrong moment. Hotch looked surprised, Morgan looked caught. “Reid,” he said breathlessly. “No, I wasn’t saying—”

“That it’s my fault that Elijah Forrester kidnapped his sister?” Reid’s face screwed up, in hurt or disgust, Morgan couldn’t tell. “That I’m so distracting that I’m keeping you from being able to do your job?” _Definitely disgust_ , Morgan thought. “Because that’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“Reid,” Morgan pleaded. It was of no use. He could tell just from the look on the other man’s face that he was going to be shut out. “Reid no.”

“Do you need me for anything else tonight?” Reid asked Hotch directly. “Am I going with you in the field tomorrow?”

Hotch looked regretfully at the other man, but shook his head. “Given your condition Reid I think it is best that you remain at the motel or the police station for the remainder of this case.”

Reid looked like he found that to be insulting. “I’m not incompetent, agent Hotchner. I can do my job.”

“No one is saying you can’t. But on Morgan’ recommendation—” 

“Morgan doesn’t speak for me!” Reid glared. “He’s not my keeper. I am perfectly capable of telling you myself when I feel well enough to be in the field. I’m not an invalid. I’m not even sick.”

“But, you are sick. You haven’t been feeling well.”

“Would you keep Agent Prentiss off of a case because she had a stomach ache?” Hotch stared at him as if he took issue with this analogy, but he didn’t say anything. Reid continued, “I need you to make up your own mind about me. Morgan will make recommendations to you as an alpha who thinks he owns me. He’s biased.”

“I’m not!” Derek looked at Reid in surprise. Did the other man really believe that he would let the feelings that came with their claim affect his professional judgment? “Reid,” he tried. It was no use. Spencer offered Hotch a curt nod, and Morgan nothing, and went back into the hotel room. Morgan knew he’d have to join him in there eventually if he wanted to sleep that night. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

\---

Reid had clearly just come from the shower when Morgan entered the room. His hair hung, damp and faintly curling about his shoulders, his lower half already covered in a loose pair of sleep pants. Without his glasses for the first time in days, he looked incredibly young. Morgan felt his breath hitch in his chest at the sight. _Beautiful_ , his mind immediately produced, and he felt an ache of want crash over him. While Derek couldn’t keep from staring, he himself was barely spared a glance as Spencer made for the bed. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced. 

Morgan cut him off before he could reach the safety of the covers. Refraining from outright touching him, Derek said, “Hey: will you listen to what I have to say?” He really hadn’t liked the way things had gone out in front of the motel earlier. It’d been a bad ending to a bad day. “Please?” he asked.

“It really doesn’t matter.” Reid was trying to sound nonchalant but figured he wasn’t quite succeeding. His posture was tense, giving Morgan the confidence to interfere. He was like a large statue in front of him and he couldn’t get around. Reid exhaled in resignation. “You’ve said all you need to say. To agent Hotchner. But don’t worry, it’s no big deal.” His sarcastic tone said otherwise. “It’s pretty standard, blaming everyone’s screw-ups on the token omega, so I’m not surprised.”

“Damn it Reid, that’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it?”

Reid’s eyes burned up at him, and Morgan had to shove down the urge to just grab the kid and smash their mouths together. “I was telling him why I was distracted. I was blaming myself, not you.”

Spencer froze, caramel eyes widening. “That’s not what I heard.”

“Yeah well you came in at the tail end of it all right?” He spoke the words harshly, baring his teeth as an alpha would to a pesky omega that’d overstepped their bounds, and he didn’t fail to notice how Spencer shrunk a little at the snap. The kid’s head canted just the faintest bit in unconscious submission, and it drew Morgan’s attention full-on to the healing mark there. Guilt and pleasure swept through him in a rush. Guilt for intimidating his coworker in such a way, and pleasure in asserting control over the one he’d claimed. Derek fought off the second feeling, reaching up to touch Spencer’s neck in a manner that he hoped was non-threatening. His thumb brushing over the sensitive spot had Spencer relaxing instantly. His scent intensified in a rush of cloying pheromones and reached Morgan’s nose, nearly making him moan. “You smell so good,” he murmured, unable to restrain himself from stepping closer. Beside him, Spencer’s breath stuttered. The young omega still smelled of anger—spicy, but now there was a smoky undertone of lust to it. “Don’t be mad at me,” Derek said softly. “I told you: I’m on your side. I’m not going behind your back, trash talking you to Hotch or anyone else. That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Reid asked equally as quietly. He looked apprehensive of being so close to the other agent, unsure of what Derek was thinking. “For me to leave the team?” No way in hell was he doing that. 

“No. I just want to catch this guy as soon as possible. I want to find these kids alive and return them to their family. I want to go home, and I want to get you back home.” Morgan let the hand that wasn’t touching Reid’s neck pull him a little closer. “And I want…” The pause he gave was to consider the features of Reid’s face. He really was a handsome guy… “Pretty boy,” he tried again, 

“No,” Spencer interrupted, already knowing what Morgan was going to say. He could see the attraction in Derek’s eyes, could see the heat. It would have been flattering if it hadn’t been completely, uncontrollably, instinctual. Spencer knew it must be. His own was, for certain. He refused to think that he’d be entertaining sexual thoughts about his coworker otherwise. Spencer shook his head. “No you don’t want that.” He tried to make space between them but Morgan held fast. Something in Spencer thrilled at the possessive grip, and he pleaded, “It’s just an addiction remember? Chemically, you like me. Not personally.”

Derek didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want Spencer to be right. “I want to be around you,” he countered. “I don’t want to argue. I…” his eyes flicked down to Reid’s lips, “want you.”

“Because of this claim.”

“And what makes that so irrelevant, huh?” Derek was having a hard time peeling himself away from Spencer’s body. Instead, he only seemed to be drawing him closer. Spencer’s scent was soaring, and Derek could feel his own pulse beating excitedly as the proximity gave his inner alpha exactly what it wanted. “Why doesn’t that count?”

“It’s not genuine,” Reid said. “It’s just biology. Do you really want to be a slave to your hormones? Like some… some teenager?”

Morgan growled. “It’s still a part of us. I don’t see how liking you due to our claim is any less meaningful than liking you due to your sense of humor or your intelligence. This is a part of you too.” Morgan pressed his face down to Reid’s neck, feeling the full body shudder that came when he nosed at the mark he’d made. 

Reid closed his eyes, glee and dismay warring within him. “I knew this was a mistake,” he muttered, as he failed to gather enough resolve to push Morgan away. It’d been a mistake of the greatest proportions, to ask the alpha to claim him. It’d certainly been a mistake to allow their bond to deepen in such an indulgent manner. Now Spencer stood in Derek’s arms in what had to be an unprofessional way, and he couldn’t make himself pull back. He liked it too much. “Morgan,’ he said, trying to make his voice sound solid. “Don’t do this. Not now. I am trying to retain some shred of credibility on this case. Hotch already thinks I’m weak.”

That did the trick. Morgan’s eyes flashed up, mouth no longer in dangerous proximity to Reid’s neck. “He does not,” he said sternly. “He just wants to make sure you’re safe. His ass would be grass if he let a compromised agent into the field and you got hurt.”

Reid didn’t have the energy to argue, though he wanted to. Disentangling himself from Morgan, he walked over to the two-seater table in the motel room. It still had the case files of the missing siblings scattered across it. He reached out with one hand to push the papers around as Morgan could be felt coming up behind him. Reid squinted at the clues that had failed to lead them to their unsub, Morgan’s hands felt on his waist in the next second. “This will be a distraction if we continue,” he murmured. Morgan obviously heard him, but that didn’t stop his hands from roaming. He touched up and down his sides, smoothing over his stomach and curling at his neck. It made Spencer more aware of the fact that he was half-naked, while Derek was fully dressed. He had to sigh at how good it felt to be collected back against the chest of the larger man. Unsettlingly, he wished that Derek was shirtless as well. “I’m going to go to a center when we get back,” he decided, the words coming out much less firm than he’d been intending. Derek grunted, fingers tightening where they held him. He didn’t stop. Spencer tried again and with less resolve when Derek’s hips met the back of him, erection evident. “I'll see a counselor at the GHC," he promised, "I’ll have it neutralized. They can do that if you, if you have the claiming alpha's consent." The assertion left his mouth in a slippery whisper that did nothing to advance his cause. Morgan kissed the gland in his neck and nipped it, and Spencer completely lost his train of thought. His hand slipped off the table, the evidence scattering to the floor.

The flopping sound of paper made Spencer’s eyes shoot open. “Crap,” he breathed. Derek’s hands were still on him when he pulled away to crouch and gather up the mess. The photographs and missing persons reports all over the floor were like a jolt of reality; an unpleasant metaphor for how this thing with Derek was fast becoming a problem for their work. _You’re giving in to something you’ve spent half your life fighting not to give in to_ , Spencer’s mind sneered at him. He grit his teeth as he hastily tried to gather the evidence together in a stack. 

Morgan crouched behind him, trying to still his frantic arms. “Hey, it’s okay.” Spencer ignored him, and he touched coaxingly at his elbow. “Pretty boy, leave it.”

“No!” Reid had whirled around in frustration, two messy handfuls of important evidence gripped between them. He shook it at Morgan, his own upset features just as shaky. “This is important. It’s our job! Don’t you get it?” He gasped, clumsily trying to gather more of it off the floor. He ignored Morgan, his words coming too fast. “I can’t… let you do this I can’t… have sex with you and let you claim me when we have this case to solve and it’s fucking falling all over the floor and—”

His hyperventilating words were cut off by Morgan; grabbing him roughly, pulling his head around and kissing him, hard, to shut him up. Reid froze, unable to breathe or to think, and Morgan pulled back with an indelicate ‘pop’. But he kept his hands locked firmly around his face. “Okay,” he said. “Okay Reid, I get it. We can take a step back.” Slowly, so as to show Reid that he had no intention of pushing the issue, Derek leant around him to start help picking up the scattered items. Something in Reid relaxed visibly after a moment, and he allowed the other man to calm him with a steadying gaze as they gathered the mess together.


	12. Moving in on Shadows and Blind Corners

It was like being in a daze. Reid knelt there on the floor with bruised lips and scrambled thoughts, while Morgan fulfilled his promise and did most of the picking up. He’d gotten almost all of it back on the table before Reid realized that he was still kneeling on the floor, and quite uselessly now. 

Derek had kissed him.

Shuddering at he knew not quite what, Spencer brought one foot forward to stand up. But he saw something before his head cleared the table. The edge of a photograph, peeking out from beneath the nearest bed’s dust-ruffle. Sighing, spencer lowered himself back down and half-crawled over to snatch it up. He brought it back to the table to add to Derek’s hasty pile. 

“There, you see?” Derek was saying. “All back on the table where it belongs.”

Reid nodded mutely, too unenthusiastic to say anything snide about Morgan’s lack of an organizational system. The photo he’d grabbed up from the floor was the one that Derek had recovered from the abandoned house. The lurid one, with the chain of numbers and letters scribbled on the back. Spencer pursed his lips. No hope remaining for any of the previously tidy stacks that he’d arranged, he merely tossed the picture back to the tabletop. It landed numbers-side up, and it landed right next to another picture: one of the yellowed Polaroids of Caroline and Elijah as children. Reid squinted at it. It was one of the happier photos, he realized. Where both were smiling and neither was being molested. The two siblings were leaning up against the back bumper of a big truck—a rig. Caroline stood to the left, and Eli stood to the right, and… Reid froze as he saw it. There. Right there in the middle. In plain sight between the hem of Caroline’s sundress and Eli’s ruddy jeans, was a series of numbers and letters. The same numbers and letters that were scrawled on the back of the other photo. Finally, it all came together. Reid exhaled in frustrated vindication, feeling as if he’d located the last, elusive piece of a jigsaw. He KNEW he’d seen that sequence of numbers before! 

“Reid?” Derek was looking at him in concern, apparently having realized that something colossal was passing through the genius’ mind, but unable to tell exactly what. “Reid what is it?”

Spencer licked his lips, thoughts racing so fast that he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get them out to Morgan as recognizable speech. “I think...” he said slowly, deliberately calming his voice when all his nerves wanted him to do was flap around like a lunatic. “I think I know where he’s keeping them.”

Morgan looked shocked, then eager. “Where?” he urged.

Spencer traced his finger thoughtfully over the picture. “The room was long and narrow, and looked like new construction. And we said he’d need a large vehicle to move the victims.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking boy wonder.”

Reid flapped his arms like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I think it’s a truck. He’s keeping them in one of his father’s old eighteen wheelers.” He pointed to the picture. "This one."

Morgan stared, then pulled out his phone and speed dialed Hotch. “It’s me,” he said quickly when the line picked up. “We need to put out an APB on some plates.”

\---

“There was a junkyard on the property,” Morgan was lamenting to the rest of the car. They were on route back to the Hallowell house. It was a shot in hell that the trailer they were looking for was actually there, as opposed to attached to some rig, out rolling around somewhere. But they had to try. “All those rusted out rooms back there. God. You two were supposed to clear it.”

“We did,” Rossi said simply.

“Maybe not. That room he’s keeping them in is a retro-fitted tractor trailer. How many shells were out there? He could’ve had them parked in the damned back yard!"

Prentiss shot a rueful glance over from her side of the car. “More than five, less than ten. We _searched_ them Morgan. That whole place was an abandoned dump.” She didn’t like the way that Derek was placing the blame on her and Rossi. “Nobody could have been in one of those. The pictures of the victims show a room equipped with electricity.”

“Did you search for a generator?”

“We would have heard it!”

Because fate had a perfect sense of timing, Morgan’s phone began ringing at that exact moment. “Garcia,” Derek told everybody in the car as he picked up the call. “What’s up?”

 _“Just calling to shed some investigatory light on you guys’ fieldtrip,”_ she said eagerly. _“Wanna know what I know?”_

“We’re about to move in on shadows and blind corners, so yeah. Illuminate me.” 

_“I took another look at the paper trail surrounding this property. Deeded indeed to Elijah Forrester—Senior not junior, before being foreclosed on by the bank a few months after his death. Neither of the kids ever took possession.”_

“Nobody did,” Morgan returned as he thought of the haggard house they were headed towards. “It’s abandoned.”

_“Oh ho. But then why oh why, my lovely, is there a deed signing the property over to ‘Augusta Contractors, Ltd.’?”_

“What?” Morgan screwed his face up, and he was more than aware of everyone else in the car hanging on his every utterance. “Contractors? It’s being developed?”

 _“It will be. Into a shiny new duplex soon enough. It’s all been held up in a long string of legal contestations—brought by your unsub, I might add. Butanyway! That’s not the important part,”_ she rushed. _“There’s a bill coming in from the power company and city water every month. For the past THREE months.”_

“Fuck!”

“What?!” Hotch, Rossi, Prentiss and Reid looked eager to know what’d warranted the curse. 

_“It’s an incredibly low charge—not what it would cost to power that entire house. Even if he was like, Amish. So I’m betting that he’s got a hookup in a small structure nearby, like a shed or a camper or…”_

“A truck trailer,” Morgan said woodenly. This was it. Reid had been right. 

_“Um, yeah. I guess.”_ Garcia sounded vaguely perplexed but satisfied nonetheless. _“Does that help?”_

“Yeah,” Morgan breathed. “Thanks Garcia.” He hung up. 

“Morgan?” Prentiss nearly growled at him in frustration. _“What is it?”_

Derek told them about the recent power bills, his gaze mostly settled on Prentiss’ shocked face at the news. “ _Now_ do you think that you should have searched harder?”  
She grit her teeth. “There were no habitable structures on that lot. We didn’t miss anything.” 

“Well obviously you’re wrong!” Derek snapped, feeling unusually emotional over the issue. Emily and David had made a mistake, endangered the team. It was inexcusable! 

“Stop arguing,” Hotch issued from the driver’s seat. Everyone shut up immediately. Spencer just continued to sit mildly in the back seat, squished between Prentiss and Morgan and their bickering. He kind of felt that Morgan was being unfairly judgmental of his coworkers, but the effects of their bond acted like a choke collar on Reid, silencing him from dissention against the one who’d claimed him. The idea of it put a small frown onto the genius’ face. Spencer Reid was his own person; not some witless omega who needed to follow behind his keeper. Yet he’d held his tongue when he’d have preferred to speak? He didn’t like it one bit that his instincts would tell him to do so. It made sense evolutionarily of course; you don’t bite the hand that feeds, or the alpha who protects. But Spencer also knew that he was riding in a car full of FBI agents, a badge in his pocket and a gun at his hip. Evolution didn’t have to mean as much when you had all of that. 

He still didn’t join in the bickering though. He’d taken enough risk getting Hotch to agree to let him come along on this drive and he wasn’t going to mess that up by taking sides in a pointless argument. “We’re getting close,” Hotch said. Any lingering looks between Morgan and Prentiss were dropped. The street pavement became more rocky, the curbside weeds higher and the houses sparser as they drove the SUV a block away from the abandoned Forrester house. Hotch put it in park and turned the key, the engine cutting off to silence as everyone made sure their earpieces were in place. “Morgan, you check the house while we go around back. He may have decided to move indoors, and there’s no use wasting time outside if he has. How many entrances are there to that junkyard?” 

“Two.” 

“Then we enter from both. If he’s here and feels trapped we know what he’ll do.” 

“Suicide by cop,” Reid murmured, to the agreeing nods of everyone else. 

“But we don’t give him the chance to run either,” Hotch said. “Prentiss I want you and Reid to go in from the garage side of the house. Rossi and I will circle around back to get to the other entrance. Search everything. If it’s locked, we make it unlocked.” 

Even as he said it, Morgan was reaching into the way back to grab the bolt cutters they’d brought. Rossi took one pair, Reid took the other. Morgan locked eyes with him as he passed it over, feeling very nervous at the thought of splitting up from Reid for even one second. “Hey,” he murmured. “Be careful.” For his part, Spencer looked sure but tense. He looked ready. “I will,” he promised, trying to send some measure of reassurance to Morgan through his eyes. To tell him that he could do this. 

Derek wanted to ask Reid how he was feeling, if he felt clear-headed enough to do this. He wanted so badly to make sure that this wasn’t as dangerous a situation as he thought it might be, but the boy wonder had somehow weaseled his way back into the field, convincing Hotch that all hands were needed on deck tonight. Who was Morgan to argue? They climbed silently from the car to head in, and Derek’s alpha screamed at him that he was _exactly_ the person to argue. That Reid was _his_ to protect, and that this was a stupid plan of attack. 

Hotch gave them all one last, sharp look before going off around the side of the house with Rossi. Emily and Reid hunkered into a strategic jog towards the garage, and Morgan felt intrinsically wrong as he let them. 

_\---_

Prentiss took point, clearing the corners of the trailers that littered the junk yard. Reid follow, gun drawn and pointed at the ground, the bolt cutters an awkward weight where they hung over his shoulder. For obvious reasons, they didn’t talk. Emily communicated everything that she needed to through sign. 

It was dark in the yard at night. Darker than either one of them would have liked. It dulled their senses, making each movement that much less careful, that much less calculated. Reid winced at the first piece of rubbish that crunched noisily under his shoe. By the third, he accepted it as inevitable. If their unsub was there, he’d either hear it or he wouldn’t. It’d be up to them to react. 

Everything was harder to predict like this, and Reid and Prentiss crept around the junkyard’s darkened shapes with wary eyes. Reid blinked as his sight adjusted further. No sign of Hotch or Rossi in the near vicinity. They were most likely still at the far side of the lot where they’d entered. Reid could see Emily as she rounded the second trailer on their side of the yard, sending the signal back at him to come around and help her open it. “There are fresh tire marks over there,” she whispered. Spencer knew what that meant. The container had been moved recently. From the scared look in Emily’s eyes, he could tell that she didn’t remember this particular trailer being there before. Spencer felt his heartrate pick up at how close they might be. The lock gave with a firm grip and Reid’s full weight pressed to the cutters, but he winced at the loud, metallic ‘crack’ and the resultant thud of the lock’s base clattering to the ground. No sounds came from inside the trailer though. Emily must have seen Spencer wince at the racket, because she deemed to mutter, “Chain’s not going to be any quieter.” She began unravelling the short length of chain from the trailer’s doors. Reid set the bolt cutters gently down on the ground so that he could hold his gun properly, all the while thinking that they probably should have saved the locked trailers for last. He prayed to god that Elijah Forrester was not nearby. 

Prentiss took a solemn breath, her hands closing around the vertical bolts that would free the doors. “I hate this part,” she muttered, before yanking upwards. She didn’t have to explain to Reid what she meant. Being on the other side of a door—THE door—of a case like this, opening it, confronting whatever it was that you found… It was one of the most terrifying parts of the job, the not knowing what was on the other side. Reid’s heart was hammering, but his shoulders were firm as he held his pistol to cover Emily. She pulled the doors outward in one swift motion, all pretense of sneaking gone and her gun back in hand two seconds later. The two agents stared wide-eyed into the long interior of the trailer. 

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. No one was dead and no one was armed. 

“I’ll get them,” Reid said at once. “You cover the door.” 

The room smelled of stale sweat and disinfectant. Any SinGen nose could have picked up on that. Spencer could also smell how scared the two kids were. Shawn and Emma Hastings sat curled in on themselves, on opposite sides of the Plexiglas enclosure that had been built into the far end of the narrow trailer—the same room that had been in the photograph. It was eerie and jarring to see the scene in real life. Reid had to pass a tripod and camera to get to them. He swallowed hard at the thought of what their captor must have been recording. 

“Help,” the girl—Emma—immediately said, as if she thought Spencer would turn around and leave. “There’s a man keeping us here. He’s crazy!” She was whispering her words like she thought they’d be caught any second, her eyes tearing up in a mix of fear and relief. 

Reid was eager to calm her. “My name is Spencer Reid. I’m with the FBI. You’re safe now,” he said, holstering his gun and walking up to the enclosure. He had to figure a way to get them out. The translucent walls looked to be nearly an inch thick and had holes for ventilation cut out near the ceiling. Shawn and Emma Hastings looked like lab rats inside the sterile space, the unwilling subjects of Elijah’s unsavory study in human behavior. “I’m going to get you out,” Reid promised the girl, who had rushed forward to stand near him. Reid eyed her brother, who looked just as relieved but had yet to get up from where he sat. “I will,” Reid insisted. 

“You have to kill him,” Shawn said. “You don’t know what he wanted. What he made us do.” 

Emma’s features stiffened, and she pleaded again for Spencer to get them out. “Do you know where the man who took you is right now?” he asked as he examined the construction of their prison. The door was flush to the wall and secured with yet another padlock. “I can cut this,” he said. “Where is he, Emma?” 

“I don’t know. He hasn’t been back in a while.” 

“Longer than usual,” Shawn supplied. 

Spencer took in his dead expression, and thought that that could mean that a visit was due. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ve got bolt cutters outside. I’m going to get them." 

“Don’t leave us!” Emma pleaded, sounding panicked. 

I’ll be right back. In seconds.” Reid made for the front of the trailer, exiting to find Prentiss steadily scanning the dark corners of the junk yard. “He could still be close,” he told her once he’d gotten out to grab the cutters. “The brother said he’s overdue for a visit." 

Emily nodded sharply, and Reid bent to pick up the bolt cutters. 

If Emily gave any indication that she saw what was coming, Reid didn’t hear it. Something heavy hit him aside his head. Hard. Spencer collapsed to the ground for a moment, blinded by the pain. He heard the sounds of Prentiss struggling with someone. He heard a woman—someone other than Prentiss—cry and gasp, and before he even had his sight back, Reid knew there were at least two people that’d blitzed them. Panicking at his slow recovery from the blow, Reid struggled to open his eyes, to coordinate a reach for his own weapon. Emily yipped as if in pain and the sound of metal hitting flesh filled the air. When Reid lifted his head, she was on the ground and her gun was gone. Heavy footfalls made it clear that Elijah had gone into the trailer. The rate at which the situation had gone to shit had Reid reeling even more than the blow to his head. A cold, hard lump of dread settled somewhere in his gut, and he scrambled to move. 

Another course of action would have been to take shelter around the side of the trailer. To drag Prentiss out of the way and verbally negotiate what was surely now a hostage situation. Another course of action would have been to yell out for Hotch and Rossi, who probably would’ve heard and responded to any sort of cry for help. But adrenaline and pain rushed through Reid’s system as he pictured Emma’s frantic eyes and Shawn’s numb ones, and Spencer knew that he couldn’t wait. He had to get to them before Elijah Forrester killed them too. He scrambled to his knees, pushing back the wave of nausea and vertigo that came as he stood up. The rough tread of his gun’s grip hurt, pressing harshly into the pads of his fingers. He just used it to ground himself as he did what was always the easiest part: going after the bad guy. 

“Stop!” 

The door to the Plexiglas room was wide open. Reid had no idea how he’d managed to get it unlocked so fast. The Hastings siblings looked like they had tumbled to the floor and Elijah didn’t look prepared to handle Spencer’s intrusion when he already had three people to corral. So he was pointing a gun and shouting. “Get back!” he yelled, grabbing the person nearest him to his chest. It was none other than Caroline, his own sister. She looked just as terrified as the Hastings siblings, but perhaps twice as devastated at what was going on. Spencer knew instantly that she was not a second unsub. “I’ll shoot them!” Eli insisted wildly, flailing Prentice’s gun and pointing it at his sister’s neck. It didn’t make Spencer put down his own weapon. He kept it aimed on Eli as he shot the briefest glance to Shawn, trying to tell the kid that _this was it_. That he needed to run while their captor was still struggling to gain control over the situation. Spencer jerked his head in a nod, said “Run. Go!” And Shawn did. The dead look left his eyes for a second and he scrambled up from his hands and knees and pushed Emma straight out the doorway with him. 

There was no coordination to it. Emma was squealing, Caroline was sobbing, and Elijah was screaming in fury, clearly unwilling to shoot everybody as easily as promised. He pressed the muzzle off the gun even harder into his sister’s temple, Cursing at Spencer and retreating back into the little room. Spencer felt a huge wave of relief roll through him as he could hear the two teenagers exiting the trailer. They were out. They were safe. It had been a close call but they were safe. Outside, he could hear Hotch’s voice calling to Morgan through the earpiece, telling him that they had the victims, that they had the unsub, and—worst of all—that Reid was in there with him. Spencer growled in frustration at hearing Hotch say that. It was not a good idea to tell Morgan the situation that Reid was in. Now he would come running and with the way the claim had been making him act like an overprotective nut, who knew what stupid, hyped-up thing he might do. Reid reached one hand for his comm to tell Hotch to keep Morgan away, but he realized that it was gone; lost somewhere in the struggle outside. Crap. 

“Get out of here or I’ll kill her! I’ll kill us both! You won’t have anything to walk away with!” 

Spencer reaffixed all of his attention on what was before him. Half of the danger had been averted with the Hastings kids, but a huge amount of uncertainty still remained. “That’s one option,” Reid hastily agreed, inserting a false amount of confident calm into his voice. “You could die here. Both of you. But is that really how you want to go out? Shot like a rat in a trap?” 

“Might as well,” Eli said, hugging his freaked-out sister closely. The gun had slipped to her neck and he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’re going to kill me anyway.” 

“That’s not true,” Spencer insisted. “It doesn’t have to happen like that. Think about this Eli. If you die you’re going to lose the one thing that you’ve been fighting for all along: her. Is that what you want?" 

“NO! I want you to get out!” Eli jerked Caroline back a step with him and a sob escaped her. 

“Eli please just listen to him—" 

“Shut up Caroline. This is all your fault." 

“I know you don’t want to lose her. But if you kill her, or yourself, you will NEVER see her again,” Spencer said sternly. “But I can give you what you want.” 

Elijah scoffed. “You? How?” 

“You have to let her go and come out with me.” Spencer saw the visceral reaction that the man had to that suggestion, but he pressed on. “You’re a smart guy Eli. Look at the situation. There are four other FBI agents right outside of this trailer. You are not going to get out of this without going to jail, or a mental hospital, or a morgue. And like I already said, you’re smart so I’m sure you can figure out on your own which one of those doesn’t include visiting hours with your sister.” 

“You’d… they’d let me see her?” Eli looked doubtful. “If I was… if I let her go?" 

“Yes,” Spencer promised, not caring how much of it was true or not. “You could have visitation whenever you want. You could be in a room with her.” Spencer let his eyes flick to meet Caroline’s terrified ones, looking plaintively at her. She seemed to understand what he was silently asking, because when he next asked her, “You’d do that for him, wouldn’t you? Visit your brother?” 

“Yes,” she said. She sounded desperate but Reid was sure Eli was beyond noticing details like that by now. “Yes Eli. I love you. Please I can’t… I don’t want to lose you.” The pain her eyes as she said it all made it very clear that she wasn’t sure if she meant any of it all. Luckily, she was still facing away from Eli. “Please do what he says,” she begged. “And we can be together again.” 

“You don’t want that,” he argued. “You said you loved _him_. You’re marrying him.” He said it as an accusation, shaking her violently as if merely saying the words infuriated him. 

“Dennis is a good man—” 

“I don’t care!” Eli yelled. “He’s not me. You’re not leaving me!” 

Spencer could see the advantage slipping away with the calm. He tried to grab Caroline’s attention to fix this. “Why don’t you just tell him Caroline?” Spencer said. “He’ll understand. He’ll do what I say if you just tell him the truth.” 

“Tell me? Tell me what?" 

Caroline clearly had no clue what Spencer wanted her to say, so Reid inserted for her, “She told me about her feelings for you when I first met her. I interviewed her at her townhouse.” Eli seemed convinced at these details, and Spencer continued, “She was about to break it off, for you. You didn't have to do any of this.” 

“What?” Eli looked hopefully to his sister. “What’s he talking about?" 

Caroline gulped, but followed Spencer’s cue. Spencer felt grateful that his one and only ally in the room was a level-headed victim who could take direction. “The engagement,” she said shakily, drawing courage from the barely-perceptible nod that Spencer gave her. “I... decided to end it. I couldn’t marry him. I… I love you.” 

The gun against her neck slipped another inch. 

“And, and if you listen to him, we can be together again. But please do what he says!” 

“You know it’s the only way to get what you want,” Reid coaxed. He could see that Eli was slipping, this close to giving in. “Let her go and we can make it work.” 

“Okay,” Eli agreed. “But you take her place.” 

“What?” Spencer frowned. “That wasn’t one of the options.” 

“Fuck your options! I’m making a new one. Either you take her place, or she dies.” 

“What do you think you’re going to gain by—" 

“I’ll have a fucking FBI agent as leverage to get me whatever I want to get out of this. I’ll find her. I’ll come back for her once I’m free. Now decide!” Eli had reaffixed the gun’s muzzle firmly back into place against his sister’s temple, and he kissed her possessively on the opposite side. “You’re still wearing your ring, _sis_.” Caroline shuddered against him. 

Eli was demanding a trade. Spencer had no intention of doing any such thing, but then the gun got pressed even more harshly into Caroline’s face, and she let forth a pitiful whimper. And Reid could see that Eli’s finger was inching closer to the trigger. 

“Okay!” he held his hands up, pistol pointed carefully towards the ceiling. “Okay. I’ll do that. I’m putting my gun down, see?” Spencer made sure to keep his hold on the weapon hovering over the floor for a second longer. “Push her out of the room and I’m right in your line of sight. I can’t run.” 

It seemed as if he’d change his mind, some level of hesitation playing out in his eyes, but then Eli tightened his lips and shoved Caroline father than Reid though she’d go. The woman was halfway across the room in hiccups and tears before Reid could even get to her. He was still crouched with his pistol held perpendicular to the floor, And Eli rushed forward before he could pull it back in. 

“You weren’t really going to drop it,” Eli accused. 

“…No,” Reid admitted, fingers releasing the gun to the floor. He hated doing it but he didn’t have time or space to get a clean shot out. He’d be dead before he could try. “What’s the plan now?” he asked. 

Eli forced him up and back into the plexiglass enclosure. “I want to talk with those other FBI agents that you said were outside. I want to negotiate.” Eli looked around to where the faint light of the moon could be seen shining through the trailer’s open doors. “Do you hear me?!” he called out loudly. “I’ve got your guy! I want to negotia—” _THUD!_

The sound of Reid’s fist meeting Eli’s cheek broke off the last of the sentence. Reid was immediately pulling his own hand back to shake off the pain and deliver another blow. It’d been a good hit but improperly angled. It was quite probable that Elijah Forrester now had a broken cheek bone. Unfortunately, Spencer might have gained himself a broken hand as well and equally unfortunate was that it took him nearly two seconds longer that his opponent to recover. 

Eli had a hold of his shoulders before he could regain leverage, and the next thing Reid knew he was being shoved backwards across the small room. His feet tangled and his back met with something hard, knocking his breath out of him. Barely realizing that he’d collided with the room’s metal sink, Spencer gasped as Eli swung at him, the butt of the gun hitting him squarely aside the head. Bells went off from every direction in Spencer’s ears and he saw white for a second, the nausea from before threatening to return. There were only so many blows to the head one could take before concussed vomiting became an inevitability. Somewhere in the distance, Reid could hear Morgan cursing up a storm; it was the only sound that made it through the din of that awful, paralyzing ringing. Morgan’s voice. _Derek._

Something about that made Spencer snap back to alertness. He had to survive this. Derek Morgan was out there waiting, and somehow Spencer just couldn’t stand the thought of letting him down. Morgan wouldn’t handle it at all well if he wound up getting killed… Reid reacted the next time Eli came in to hit him again. He was able to block another hit from the gun with his forearm, then kicked out at Eli’s legs before he could recover. The other man started to trip, and Spencer took the only chance he had to grab for the gun. 

It went off. 

_\---_


	13. Nullification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not in the CM fandom anymore. I abandoned this fic a long time ago (as I'm sure you all noticed). But I got some inspiration the other day and really wanted to give everybody who'd been reading and reviewing an ending, so I worked this up. I hope it's not a disappointing ending. It's pretty much how I would've ended it anyway, just very condensed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW: I'm into the Captain America 'verse now, so Steve and Dr. Banner were Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner in my head, lol. Ignore if you don't care.

Reid found consciousness in stages. 

For a long time he was mildly aware of being. Maybe not of being _awake_ , but at least of being. There were sounds. Quiet murmurs nearby, and further away were other sounds; wheels rolling and footsteps and little beeps. And something smelled familiar, like spices and soap and… “Mm’Sunday Mornings,” Reid mumbled incoherently. Somewhere a voice seemed to get louder, and Spencer felt like the voice was talking to him, but he couldn’t make out the words. He tried to swat the voice away like a fly, but his limbs were too heavy. Everything was.

Spencer was so tired. He felt like he was swimming through molasses, thick and viscous, and the effort of opening his eyes just seemed too monumental to undertake for a while. When he finally did open them, everything looked white and slightly blurry and much too bright. A headache loomed at the edges of his vision, threatening to break like a storm. He closed his eyes again, not sure where he was but at least knowing that he wasn’t dead, or in the trailer. He was safe. 

He turned his head and hummed blearily into his pillow— _oh good, he had a pillow_ —pleased at that, at being safe. And his body felt sore and tired, but at least the fever that he’d been dreaming of, the hot, tight, coiling ache in his core and the pitiful _need_ that’d haunted his nightmares, was gone. And he had a pillow. And he was safe. Spencer fell back to sleep thinking distorted thoughts about how his alpha must have taken good care of him. 

The next time he woke, it was all the way. Spencer blinked up at the ceiling, frowned, lifted his head to see more. He quickly realized that he was in a hospital room, that Morgan and Rossi were there (along with an alarming number of flower arrangements), and that he was in pain. “Ow,” he groaned.

Morgan shot up out of his chair faster than Reid thought was really warranted. “He’s awake,” Morgan said with about as much urgency as if he were announcing that the building was on fire. “Rossi! He’s awake.” Reid rolled his eyes where he lay, wanting to say “ _obviously_.” Morgan looked over at Rossi, who, while still calmly seated, was smiling at Reid. “Go tell Hotch,” Morgan ordered.

Rossi got up—probably slower than Derek would have liked—nodding at Reid on the way out. “Welcome back kid.”

Chapped as they were, Reid’s lips twitched upwards. “Thanks.” Somehow it was less annoying when Rossi called him that. To Morgan, he said simply, “Pain meds?”

Derek came closer, handing Reid a corded remote that’d been on the sheets by his side. “Morphine drip. They’ve been dosing you minimally while you were out, but the nurse said you could use it whenever you woke up.”

Reid pressed the button immediately. Then he pressed it again. He’d have hit the button a third time but apparently there was a two push limit for the time being. He lay there for a moment before he felt it start to work, and _man_ was it good when it did. He felt the edges of his existence begin to go pleasantly fuzzy, and then numb, the lack of pain making him moan a little. He chanced another look at Derek, taking in his appearance, how he’d changed clothes since Spencer had seen him last. “How long—” he started to say, but the words got choked off by his dry throat. Derek seemed to know what the problem was because he had a straw at Spencer’s lips before he could blink. Spencer sipped gratefully, not having realized how thirsty he’d been. “How long have I been out?” he asked.

“Thirty six hours.” Derek glanced at the room’s clock. “Closer to forty now.”

Spencer nodded, thinking about that. He shifted in the bed, cataloging the places that, had he not just dosed himself with sweet, sweet narcotics, would be hurting the worst. He grimaced. “I got shot, didn’t I?”

Derek nodded. “Yeah pretty boy, you did.”

Reid didn’t have the energy to call Derek out on the nickname. “Shot with my own gun,” he mourned instead.

“Naw. It was Prentiss’ gun,” Morgan grinned. Reid felt the urge to smack him.

“Tell me?” he asked, words short and hoping that Derek would understand what he was asking nonetheless. 

Derek opened his mouth as if he did, but before any explanation could come out Garcia was barreling into the room with her arms out and a cry of, “Oh he lives! Poor, sweet baby badass Reid!” Hotch, Prentiss and JJ made it in next, with Rossi trailing at the back. 

Reid looked at them, currently feeling a little too high to properly address them all individually. “Guys,” he greeted in way of compromise. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Garcia exclaimed, hands rattling Reid’s bedrails. She looked like she was only just holding back from trying to hug him. “What’s up is that you extracted two hostages and charged an armed unsub, that’s what!”

Reid blushed. “I didn’t charge him.” He looked at Hotch, nervous to see if there’d be any disapproval on his face. There wasn’t. “I should have waited for backup,” Reid admitted. “Hotch, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hotch said. “Apologies can wait until you’re out of a hospital bed. We just want you to rest and heal.”

Spencer didn’t exactly feel _better_ at that response, but the morphine helped push the guilt from his mind pretty fast. “What ah, what happened once I… went down?” 

Garcia opened her mouth as if she’d answer, but Hotch got there first. “You were shot. We presume a struggle for the weapon led to that.” Reid nodded and Hotch continued, “Once we heard the gun go off well…”

“Derek totally rushed in there like _Hulk Smash_ mode and made minced meat of the perp,” Garcia said excitedly. Reid thought that Hotch looked unsettled by her choice of words.

“Minced meat?” Spencer asked, not sure if he wanted to know.

“Concussion. Broken wrist. Had to have his jaw wired shut,” Rossi volunteered, not sounding at all like he cared. “He’ll live.”

Reid gaped. “Is internal affairs taking action?”

“There will be an investigation,” Hotch told him. “But I’ve told Morgan not to worry about it. Our unsub is lucky he walked out with his life, as are you. Given the situation we were in, charges of excessive force will never stick.”

At the opposite side of the hospital bed, Derek pulled away, looking embarrassed. Reid eyed him. “You were in danger,” Derek told him quietly. “I didn’t think. I just… reacted.” He twisted his lips and met Reid’s gaze. “They told me afterwards that when I was with you in there I,” Derek grimaced, “that I wouldn’t let anyone get close to you. Not even the EMTs. So you’re not the only one who screwed up.”

Reid didn’t know what to say to that. Thank you? I’m sorry? He chewed his lip and didn’t say anything. And even with Garcia standing there, the silence stretched long enough to grow uncomfortable. Hotch broke it, filling in, “You were shot through the abdomen. Required surgery.”

“So that’s what hurts,” Reid mumbled. Or _had_. There really wasn’t anything much on Reid’s body that hurt in the present moment.

“You have a pretty good concussion too,” Hotch said. “The doctor said you should be able to go home within two weeks, but you’ll be on leave for longer.” Hotch said this as if it were obvious. 

“ _Longer?_ ” Reid tried to sit up further in the bed. It was a struggle, one which had both Derek and Penelope rushing to grab his arms and assist him, and had Hotch and JJ scolding him. “I’m fine,” Reid bit out. “Hotch I don’t need a ton of time off. As soon as I’m back on my feet I want to come back to work.” He’d only _just_ started, after all.

Hotch didn’t look like he was willing to discuss it. He had his stern face on. “That’s something we can talk about when the time comes. Right now you need to be focusing on getting well.”

Reid huffed. Well that was a bullshit placating answer if he’d ever heard one. “What about the case?” he asked wanting to know. “Elijah Forrester’s alive. How are the victims?”

Prentiss spoke up for the first time. “Caroline Forrester gave her statements last night and this morning. She made it pretty clear that she intends to speed up the moving process.”

“Her fiancé?” Reid asked, figuring that to be the reason.

“He knows,” Prentiss confirmed. “They both just seem to want to get away from here.”

“I don’t blame them,” Reid said. “Shawn and Emma?”

Prentiss’ eyes softened at Reid’s use of everyone’s first names. “They were discharged this morning. They were dehydrated but otherwise healthy. Well… physically at least.” Nobody in the room said anything to that. Nobody had to. “They’ll be in therapy for a while,” Prentiss tacked on quietly. 

_That_ was the understatement of the year. Reid nodded at the information, feeling unsatisfied by it. “Nobody died,” Reid said to no one in particular. It came out sounding fairly weightless, and it didn’t make Reid feel any better or worse than he already had. Sighing, he tried to manage a smile at everyone. “Thank you guys for being here. Thanks for the flowers.” He nodded at the veritable garden of gift shop arrangements that lined the hospital room’s window sills. 

Garcia made a squeaking sound and the next thing Reid knew, she was upon him. Gentle, as she was still aware that Reid had gone through surgery, but still there. Reid giggled a little at the embrace from a woman he hardly knew, but did what little he could to return it. He thought that her perfume smelled nice.

It took a while for the team to filter out, each one of them taking time to promise Spencer additional visits and supplies of whatever he might need. Hotch continued to assure Reid that he had nothing to worry about in terms of paperwork or investigations; they’d deal with that later. Garcia swore up and down that she’d smuggle Reid in whatever food he wanted. Prentiss gave Reid a teddy bear she’d bought in the gift shop, saying that flowers reminded her of funerals. And Rossi took a somber moment to reassure Reid that he wasn’t the only one feeling dissatisfied with how the case had turned out (“Sometimes we get there in time, and nobody dies. But we still don’t save them. You know? Not the way we’d hoped”). JJ teared up when it was her turn to say goodbye, had kissed his cheek wetly and then smacked it a little, telling him with a watery smile to never do that to her again (Spencer promised he wouldn’t, even if it was a promise he couldn’t be sure to keep).

Derek had left with the least fanfare, almost going unnoticed in his departure while Garcia had still been gushing over Reid. It wasn’t until later, when Reid was alone again and contemplating giving the morphine button its _fourth_ push, that Derek reappeared. “You,” Spencer said, surprised to see him standing there in the doorway. He forgot about what his hand was doing and pressed the button on the control to his drip before he could stop himself. Oh well, he thought. The pain _had_ been inching back. “Why are you still here?” he blurted. Derek chuckled a little and Spencer winced. “I, I mean… I thought they made you all leave?”

Derek walked over, sat lightly at the edge of the armchair by the bedside. Just on the edge of it, as if he wasn’t sure he was welcome. “Well yeah,” he said. “Yeah visiting hours are over.”

Spencer frowned. “Then why—?” 

“I told the nurses about the claim,” Derek said. “Bonded couples are allowed in after visiting hours.”

Spencer blinked. “But… We’re not bonded. We’re not… a couple.”

Derek smirked a little. “Well I said ‘claim’ and the nurses didn’t seem to understand the difference, so I didn’t correct them.”

“Oh, I see.” Reid’s head sunk back a little farther into the pillow, the new dose of drugs finding its way through his bloodstream. “Well you don’t have to stay,” he said. “I’ll be all doped up and sleeping soon anyway.”

Derek looked down at the floor, silent for a moment before looking back up at Reid. “I just wanted to talk. In private. I thought you might want that too.”

Reid looked at Derek, _really looked_ at him. He noticed the details that he hadn’t when he’d first woken up—the day-old beard that’d gone untended, the shadows under his eyes, the wrinkles in his tee shirt. For the first time, Reid really suspected that Derek had stayed at the hospital for the entire 40 or so hours before he’d woken. “Yeah,” he managed, though it came out more sedate than he’d intended. “Yeah I want to talk.” 

Derek nodded, leaned closer to the bed. “Reid I’m so, so sorry. This whole thing is my fault. I never should have let you—”

Spencer groaned, he couldn’t help it. “Stop, just… don’t.” Derek looked confused, but at least he’d stopped talking. “It was never your place to ‘let’ me do anything,” Spencer said irritably. “And it’s not your fault that I got shot. I made a bad call. I should have stayed out of the trailer with Prentiss, waited for backup.”

“Forrester had derailed by that point.” Derek shook his head. “We profiled that he’d go down with his ship, and he would have.”

“I made the wrong call. IAB will say so.”

“Yeah.” Derek nodded firmly. “They will. And if you’re going by the book then you did. But you also saved three lives Spence. The Hastings might be dead if you hadn’t made ‘the wrong’ call. Caroline Forrester sure as hell would be.”

Reid didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know if he _should_ say anything. “And Elijah Forrester?” he asked, “Why’d you hurt him so bad?” 

“He shot you.”

Spencer shrugged, feeling foggier by the second. Maybe he’d pushed the button again too soon after all. “But it’s not your job to beat the crap out of someone for hurting me. It’s your job to subdue and arrest.”

Derek looked taken aback, and then abashed. “I did that too,” he argued weakly.

“It had to do with this,” Reid shrugged his neck to the side, pointing half-heartedly in what he thought was the direction of Derek’s claiming bite. “Didn’t it?”

Derek frowned. “You’re my coworker Spencer I still would’ve—”

“You _Hulk Smashed_ ,” Reid reminded. “Garcia said so.”

“Kid,” Derek’s lips quirked. “Do you even understand that reference?”

Reid closed his eyes. “I can _infer_ meaning from diction.”

“Yeah it was because of the claim.” Derek admitted. “Like I said: I didn’t think, I acted. I couldn’t help it.”

“Mmm. And you wouldn’t let the EMTs in.” Spencer still had his eyes closed. He didn’t really have plans of opening them again.

“Spence…” Derek paused, piecing together what he wanted to say. “When I heard that gunshot… Look: I thought I knew what I felt about you and I thought I knew how far my instincts could push me. I thought…” Derek looked down to the floor in frustration. “I thought there was a limit to it, that there was a place where the alpha ended and I began. But when I heard that gunshot? When I ran around back and realized that it was you and him and a gun in there?” Derek shook his head at the memory of it. “Just… rage took over. Rage and, and desperation and fear. And I felt like there had never been anything _but_ the alpha. Like there never would be again. I’ve never felt so out of control before.” He glanced up at Reid with shiny eyes. “I’ve never been so angry, so fucking _scared_ in my life. I never want to feel like that again.”

Reid nodded, feeling very sleepy but satisfied with that answer. “Knew it,” he yawned. “S’gonna be a problem y’know.”

Derek sighed, cupping his face in his hands, scrubbing it as if to ward off fatigue. “We need to talk about it,” he said. “About what we’re going to do about it.”

Spencer nodded blindly, eyelashes still fanned across his cheeks. “I do want to talk about it but,” he yawned again and turned his face into the pillow. “M’gonna sleep now first.”

Derek raised his eyebrows. “Spence?”

“Too much morphine,” Spencer murmured, clearly exhausted. “Four… pushes.”

Derek watched him for a moment more, perhaps feeling a little too fond watching him drift away like that. He had no intention of leaving Reid’s bedside that night, the drive to protect and care for the omega he’d claimed too strong to ignore in such a circumstance. But Reid didn’t have to know that. Derek waited until he was sure that Spencer had fallen asleep, then went across the room and collected a thin blanket and a pillow for himself. “Yeah pretty boy,” he said quietly, settling back into the chair. “You go ahead and sleep.”

.oOo.

Reid’s apartment was a walkup above a little coffee shop, occupying the second floor of what had to be a very old row home. Derek struggled to make it up the narrow stairs without dropping anything. It wasn’t that his collection of items was particularly heavy, no. Just that it was awkward.

Thankfully Spencer opened the door quickly after Derek knocked. “Hey Pretty boy,” Derek said, trying to grin from around the edge of a gift basket. “Let me in so I can put all this stuff down?”

Spencer blinked, moved aside to let him pass, and shut the door quietly again once Derek was dumping his armload onto the living room coffee table. “I thought we’d compromised on ‘boy wonder’?” Spencer quipped, though it lacked conviction. 

Derek was standing back up. “Yeah well.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “Hey, nice place.” 

“Thanks. What is all this stuff?”

“Gifts and supplies from the team,” Derek said, taking a look around. “You know, in case you needed anything for your recovery, or a journey on the Oregon trail.” Spencer chuckled quietly and began picking through some of the gifts. 

Derek let his gaze wander. The building seemed newer inside, but cozy. Spencer’s small living room was filled with comfortable-looking furniture, science fiction movie posters, and books—lots of them. Derek had expected the books, but the posters came as a surprise. The smell of coffee beans from the shop downstairs kind of seeped up through the floors, and Derek figured that it only served to enhance the perpetual coffee scent that Spencer carried around with him. It was a tidy, lived-in sort of place, and Derek instantly liked it. He felt happy that his omega had made such nice home for himself.

_Not your omega_ , he forced himself to correct. 

Spencer was wearing sweatpants and a too big tee shirt from the Academy. They made him look fragile, and Derek had to swallow down the urge to grab him up and stick him somewhere soft and warm. Spencer seemed to have inventoried most of the gifts. “Thanks for bringing them over,” he said, picking up a whole roasted chicken that someone had gotten him and taking it to put it in the kitchen. Derek trailed after him, nervous to see Spencer up and moving about while his injuries were still healing. “You can tell everyone that I’m doing okay with feeding myself though,” Spencer chuckled, closing the refrigerator door. 

“Are you?” Derek questioned before he could stop himself. “Eating enough?” It was _embarrassing_ that he’d have been out the door in a second if Spencer so much as hinted he needed a single thing from the grocery store. “Or uh,” Derek coughed. “You know: taking care of yourself?” 

Spencer blushed, looking somewhere over Derek’s shoulder. “Yeah. I’ve had some help.”

Derek would have asked about that, but before he could someone cleared their throat. He turned around and saw a stupidly handsome man who was built like a brick wall walking out of what he could only conclude was Spencer’s bedroom. The man smiled politely at them, and Derek stepped right in front of Spencer without even thinking about it. “Who are you?” he asked. His tone wasn’t particularly friendly.

“Hi,” big, tall and blond said, looking a little uncertain now that Morgan had physically blocked Spencer from his view. “I’m…Steve.” He tried to look around Morgan’s shoulder in an attempt to glimpse Spencer. “You okay Spence?”

_Spence?_ Derek frowned. “He’s fine. Who exactly are you?”

“This is Steve,” Spencer moved around the blockade of Derek’s body. “He’s a Nurse. They let me go home from the hospital early, so he’s been coming in to make sure I’m healing okay.”

_Oh. Well._ Derek felt himself deflate a little, feeling stupidly overprotective. He nodded at Steve. “Hey.”

“How you doing?”

Nurse Steve, as it turned out, was just leaving. Spencer saw him out while Derek loitered in the living room. When Spencer returned Derek said, “He seems nice.”

Spencer gave him a _look._ “He’s just a home aide.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Mmhm.” Spencer pointed at the couch. “Sit.”

Derek wasn’t used to being ordered around by the other man, but he did as told. Spencer came around and took a seat on the couch himself, shifting gingerly enough that Derek could tell he was in some degree of pain. “Do you have anything you can take?” he asked, ready to get up to help.

“I’m fine,” Spencer insisted. “Sit. We need to talk.”

Derek sank reluctantly back into the couch. “If you’re in pain…”

“ _Look_ ,” Spencer said. “This claim.”

Derek swallowed. Well there it was. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I ah, tried to bring it up at the hospital but you were kind of…”

“Doped out of my mind?” Spencer smiled, and Derek found that he really liked the way it looked. He hadn’t seen Spencer smile nearly enough since they’d met. 

“Right.” Derek took a moment to try and gather the nerve to say something. “Look, I know we had a few moments of um, more intimate behavior since this whole thing started…” He saw that Spencer was blushing, looking at his lap, and hurried to add, “But we don’t have to make it into anything other than what it is if you don’t want to. I’d understand.” He chuckled self-depreciatingly. “God knows I’m not exactly relationship material.”

Spencer frowned, some unfamiliar part of his brain whining low and pitiful at hearing Morgan criticize himself. “Why would you say that?” he asked gently.

Derek chewed his cheek, looking like he was trying to decide whether or not to answer. In the end he gave in and said, “I have baggage Reid. Stuff that doesn’t exactly make me the best candidate for a mate.” Spencer’s lips parted in surprise before Derek could hurriedly correct, “I mean boyfriend.” He paused, rolled his eyes closed, and sighed in defeat. “Or well, or a mate either. I uh, do you remember when we were talking about losing your cool on cases?” he asked Spencer. “About the things that get to you? Make you lose perspective?”

“Yes,” Reid said quietly.

“You asked me then if I’d been abused as a kid. Well I was. I… I had a coach.” 

That’s all he offered and it was apparently enough, because Spencer nodded in somber understanding. He wanted so badly to scoot closer to Derek on the couch. Wanted to crawl in close to his side and rub his face on the other man to cheer him up with scent and touch. He didn’t though. He managed to stay where he was. And while Spencer hoped not, he kind of suspected that the only thing that kept him in place was the idea of how much more moving would hurt than sitting still. After a tense minute of silence he offered, “My chances of developing schizophrenia are ten times higher because of my mom.” He said it like it was a trade; one of his deepest secrets for one of Morgan’s. “I’m twenty three and that’s about when symptoms start showing. I could go crazy any day now.”

“Kid, you’re a genius. You aren’t going to go—”

“—I’m talking to Hotch about possibly coming back next week,” Spencer interrupted.

Derek looked taken-aback. “What? I mean, _next week_? Spencer that’s insane. You’re still moving around all...” he gestured at Reid’s midsection, trying to find the right word, “ _gingerly_ , for Christ’s sake. You should stay here and heal.”

Spencer seemed to shrink back into his spot on the couch, unhappy about being scolded by Derek (unhappy about _displeasing_ Derek, his traitorous mind supplied). “I can at least make myself useful behind a desk. I don’t want to stay away any longer than I have to.”

Derek folded his arms. “What does Hotch have to say about all of this?” 

“He thinks it’s a good idea. But he’s made it clear that if I’m going to come back then you and I need to decide how we’re going to handle what we’ve got between us. He says it’s not safe for us to be working so closely together otherwise.” 

Derek scoffed, he couldn’t help it. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“You charged into a standoff blind, beat an armed suspect to a pulp and sat around keeping paramedics from reaching me when I was injured.”

“Well when you put it that way.”

Spencer sighed. “I’m going to make an appointment at the GHC. I’m going to have it nullified.” He nodded to himself, as if he needed the reassurance that it was the right choice. 

“Reid,” Derek hedged. “That’s… No. You don’t have to go through that. There’ll be—”

“Side effects, I know. I’ll live.” Reid shrugged. “I mean If I can handle being shot in the guts I think I can handle a little withdrawal. Besides, I was the one who asked you to claim me. I knew what I was getting into.”

Derek tried not to frown. “We could always keep it. See where it goes.” 

“Where it’ll go is another incident just like the one we just had. Bad judgement calls leading to people getting hurt. And next time we might not be so lucky; it could be someone else on the team that gets hurt.”

“If you just stay out of the field for your heats,” Derek tried to argue, “I don’t think our behavior would be triggered like that again.”

But Spencer was shaking his head already, as if he’d expected this argument. “Do you know that?” When Derek couldn’t answer that he did, Reid said, “It’s not worth the risk. Not to me. If my designation leads to another incident on the job, I’m out.” Spencer looked seriously at Derek. “My career will be over. People are willing to tolerate the token omega until something goes wrong.”

Derek winced, thinking about his dad. He wondered if they’d have kicked him off the force, if he’d survived the shooting. “Don’t say that Spence. Hotch doesn’t ‘tolerate’ you. He wants you on the team.”

“It wouldn’t be Hotch’s decision though would it? Plenty of other people would be glad to fire me. You know it’s true.” Spencer didn’t seem that upset by what he was saying. More resigned really. “I’ve worked too hard to get here Derek. I never wanted an alpha. I’ve actively avoided falling into a situation just like this for years.” Exhaling, he let his head fall back into the couch cushion. “I’ve made up my mind.”

Derek sat there and chewed the inside of his lip to keep himself from arguing. He wanted to, _really_ he did. But the longer he sat there looking Spencer’s determined expression, the harder it became to think of a way to do that without sounding like a total ass. He couldn’t say that he’d gotten used to the contented feeling that lodged itself in his chest whenever Reid was happy, or resting, or well-fed. Couldn’t say how he’d become accustomed to Reid’s hyper hands, his awkward smiles, his coffee and paper scent. He certainly couldn’t say that he’d gotten used to feeling like Reid was his responsibility. That he _liked_ that feeling. Spencer had made it clear from day one that he didn’t want to be anyone’s responsibility but his own, that he didn’t need let alone want an alpha. And Derek couldn’t think of a way to say, _I want to keep the claim_ , without also tacitly saying, _I want to be your alpha_. 

So instead he said nothing. He just nodded at Reid, managed what he hoped looked like a supportive smile, and offered to fix them both lunch.

.oOo.

Reid made his appointment for a week after Morgan had visited him in his apartment. It’d been the soonest the GHC had available and the week of waiting hadn’t been easy. Morgan’s scent had lingered for _days_. Spencer had tried keeping the windows open in the afternoon, had Febrezed just about every available surface, but something about Derek’s scent from a few hours’ visiting time had refused to completely go away, like residue from a particularly stubborn sticker.

Now Spencer stood outside in the parking lot, eyeing the lettering on the brick wall of a rather bland-looking building. _G2 Health Clinic_ , it read. The clinics were government-funded and few and far between. Spencer had had to take the train all the way into D.C. for the occasion. He’d hesitated at telling Morgan when the appointment was at first. The paperwork for Derek’s approval only required a signature after all. Spencer could have brought it by the BAU and just had him sign it there. But in the end that hadn’t seemed right. Spencer had told him.

Looking out over the small strip that constituted the GHC’s parking lot, Spencer noticed Morgan’s car. He was in the driver’s seat, letting the engine idle. Spencer sighed. Of course once he’d told him, Derek had insisted on accompanying Reid. “For support,” he’d said. Spencer didn’t know if he was grateful for that or not. For the sentiment, sure. Derek wasn’t an ass; he felt bad that Reid would be the one who had to suffer through the whole process when Derek himself got off scot free. But in reality Spencer wasn’t sure which would be worse, going through it alone, or having Derek there to witness it all. 

He forced himself to walk over to the car, to tap on the window lightly. Derek startled, not having been looking that way. His wide, white smile split his face as soon as he saw that it was Spencer, and he turned the keys in the ignition. Car off, he hopped out put a hand on Reid’s shoulder. “Ready?” he asked. Apparently he could sense that Reid was nervous and didn’t want to expend any effort on small talk.

They walked in the building together. The waiting room looked like that of any other poorly-funded government clinic. The chairs were set up in rows and looked uncomfortable, and the woman sitting behind the glass pane of the receptionist’s booth looked bored. The room had too many surfaces painted white and smelled of antiseptic. Reid hated it, and found had to squash the urge to press himself up to Derek’s side. He walked up to the counter where the receptionist was, Derek keeping himself a polite few steps behind. 

“Hi. I’m here for an appointment,” Reid said.

The receptionist glanced up briefly, before reaching for the mouse to her computer. “Name?” she asked.

“Um, Reid. Spencer. Doctor Spencer Reid,” he corrected, somehow feeling that the title was very necessary right now. “I have an eleven o’clock appointment.”

The woman clacked a few things into the keyboard. “Let’s see. Yes. With Doctor Banner,” she said. “He’ll be ready for you shortly.” She grabbed a paper and stuck it to a clipboard, which she slid through to Spencer. It had a pen attached to it by a rubber band. “Please fill this out while you wait.”

Spencer nodded, “Okay,” took the clipboard and sat. Derek took the seat across from him instead of next to him and Spencer found that he was glad for the space. He looked down at the form he’d been given. The first side was all standard: contact information, insurance information, family medical history, etc. Spencer flipped to the back and the questions got harder. The paper wanted to know the name of his alpha. Wanted to know the reason for nullification. Wanted to know if Reid had produced any children with said alpha or if he was currently pregnant. 

Reid balked. It wasn’t that the questions really came as a surprise. Clinics like this one had to keep statistics on nullifications done for reasons such as rape or abuse. And nullifications got incredibly sticky when children were involved in the equation. No, Spencer wasn’t surprised by the questions, he just didn’t feel like he should have to answer them. Didn’t even know _how_ to answer the first one. The one asking who his alpha was. Reid would’ve maintained that he didn’t _have_ an alpha. That he had a coworker and a claim and that those two things put together did not make him someone’s omega. But technically he supposed it was true. So after a long moment of glaring at the page, Spencer forced himself to write Derek’s name in the blank space. He forced himself to answer all of the form’s intrusive questions, and when he reached the bottom and had signed his signature next to the space marked _omega patient_ , he forced himself to hand the clipboard over to Derek so that he could sign in the space marked _alpha consent_. Derek didn’t linger over the questions or Spencer’s answers to them, and for that Spencer was infinitely grateful. 

It wasn’t long after he returned the clipboard that he and Derek were called back. It rankled some piece of Spencer’s pride that the nurse assumed Derek would be included, but Derek was there for support, and Spencer didn’t think he’d get that if he made him stay in the waiting room. The nurse put them in a small but standard exam room. She took Spencer’s vitals and told them the doctor would be right in. There was only one plastic chair to sit in, and as much as Spencer wanted to take it, he felt like it would be rude to force Derek to keep standing for the whole appointment. So Spencer took a seat on the padded exam table and nodded for Derek to take the chair. 

Doctor Banner, as it turned out, was a pretty inoffensive man. He came in pushing a small tray on wheels. He wore a thin white lab coat over clothes that looked slightly too large for his frame. He wasn’t freshly shaven and his curled hair looked a little messy, but he had kind eyes behind his glasses and a soft smile. He acknowledged Spencer immediately. “Hello there,” he said mildly, wheeling the tray he’d brought to the side and grabbing the tablet computer that the nurse had left behind. “I’m Dr. Banner,” he said needlessly, swiping through a few screens on the pad before stopping to read. “And you are Spencer. Dr. Spencer Reid?” 

Spencer nodded, glad that the man had called him that. “Yes.” He shifted slightly, the paper on the exam table crinkling underneath him. “This is Derek,” he offered, figuring he’d better get it out of the way. “He’s...” _my alpha_ , “the alpha.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, he’s the one I have the claim with.”

Dr. Banner nodded hello at Morgan, but didn’t spare him much more consideration. “Alright Spencer. Well before we get started I want to point out that you have the option of speaking with one of our counselors before proceeding with this course of action.”

“No thank you.” Spencer knew they’d ask him that eventually, to try and make sure that his shaky omega temperament—or whatever bullshit term was used these days—wasn’t affecting his reasoning. “I’m confident in my decision,” Spencer told him firmly.

Dr. Banner seemed to get that no further prodding would be tolerated. He turned to Derek. “Do you want to speak with one of our counselors?

Derek balked. “Um… no?” He seemed surprised to have his opinion asked. “No I’m just here for support.”

“Very well.” Dr. Banner spoke to Spencer once more, “You’re aware of the possible side-effects of this procedure?”

Spencer nodded, head bobbing quickly. “Yes.” _Sweating, nausea, tremors, headaches, irritability, panic attacks. Generalized dysphoria manifesting as pain_. “I want to do it anyway.”

Dr. Banner nodded and set the tablet down. “You’ll be sick after we complete the procedure. We have a recovery ward but I’ll need to check you in as an inpatient if you want to use it.”

Spencer shook his head. He didn’t want to stay at the clinic any longer than he had to. “No Derek’s driving me home. After.” He glanced over at Derek, tried to offer an expression of gratitude. He wasn’t so sure it came through though.

Dr. Banner brought the rolling tray over to where Spencer sat. “Roll up your sleeve please,” he instructed softly.

Spencer did, but he was frowning. “Why?”

“I need to take blood. For the pregnancy test.”

Spencer’s frown deepened. He didn’t even look to see what Derek was doing—blushing profusely, he’d guess. “I already marked that down,” Reid complained. “I’m not pregnant.”

Dr. Banner looked apologetic as he took Spencer’s arm anyway and tied the rubber tourniquet above his elbow. “I’m sorry but we’re required by law to test, if you want the procedure done. It _will_ cause spontaneous abortion.”

Spencer swallowed. He didn’t know why hearing that upset him. It wasn’t like he was pregnant—he definitely, 100% _wasn’t_. But something in his stupid omega hindbrain told him that being pregnant wouldn’t be so bad. That Derek was a strong alpha, would make good pups, and that anything that threatened that potential had to be a bad thing. Fortunately Spencer had a very developed, logical forebrain, and it proudly told his hindbrain to shut the fuck up. “Okay,” he gave in, allowing the doctor to swab alcohol on his arm and stick him with a needle.

The blood collected quickly, and Dr. Banner snapped off the tourniquet and his own latex gloves when he stood. “This will take a few minutes to test. Once we know I can start. Okay?”

Spencer nodded, looking over at the rest of the items that’d been laid out on the metal tray. “Okay.” The tray was lined with a paper towel. On it were two syringes, still in their plastic packaging, and two glass vials of clear liquid. They looked threatening sitting there so quietly, like snakes that were coiled but hadn’t struck yet. Spencer felt cold seeing them. “Those are what?” he asked, “Beta pheromones?” It wasn’t like he hadn’t researched the procedure before coming in. 

“This one is.” Dr. Banner indicated one of the two vials. “We use a 90/10 blend. Most clinics do.”

“Excuse me?” It was Derek asking, the first time he’d spoken at all.

“Ninety percent beta pheromone replacement, ten percent alpha,” Banner told him. “The beta portion is sourced from multiple donors to prevent rejection. That’s what will nullify your claim.” Banner didn’t miss the dark look that passed through the alpha’s eyes at his words.

“But why are you injecting him with alpha juice?” Derek blurted. “Won’t that just—”

“No. It won’t,” Banner interrupted. “It’s too small an amount. The alpha _‘juice’_ is included to lessen the severity of the reaction.” He turned his gaze to Spencer, telling him kindly, “It’ll give you something to help ease the transition.”

Spencer nodded in understanding, but seeing that Derek didn’t completely, he told him, “It’ll prevent me from going into shock.”

"Shit."

Dr. Banner gathered up the blood sample and the tablet and moved to leave. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The door shut quietly behind him, and Derek and Spencer were left alone again. Spencer rubbed absently at the spot where the needle had gone into his arm. “Hey,” he asked, noticing that Derek was staring vacantly at the metal tray. “You okay?”

Derek blinked, looked up at him. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Isn’t that what I’m here for? To make sure you’re okay?”

Spencer shrugged, not willing to say out loud that he _didn’t_ feel okay. He’d thought he’d known what to expect coming into this, but reading about it in a few medical journals wasn’t the same as experiencing it in real life. Scary clinic, scary needles, scary… Spencer didn’t want to imagine how bad the next parts would be. “I’ll survive this,” he said instead, hating how weak his voice sounded coming out. He forced a glance up to meet Derek’s eyes. “I have to be, right? I mean I’m not the first omega to go and get himself mixed up.”

“Kid,” Derek said sadly.

Spencer chuckled, waved him off. “Naw. That’s just something my mom used to say. Old fashioned.” He chewed his lip, glad for once that his mother was locked up in an Arizona psych ward where she could never find out about this. About how messed up Spencer had allowed his personal life to become. “She’d probably be harping on me to keep it,” he said, another chuckle lodging somewhere in his throat, refusing to come out. He looked at Derek. “I don’t think she understands much about people like us—she’s more the classical literature type. But she always had a soft spot for tradition. For romance too. Wouldn’t know a scent marking from a mating bond but she’d take one look at you and tell me to marry you or else she would.”

Derek laughed. “She sounds like a smart lady.”

“She is. Really smart.” Reid looked down, feeling odd talking with Derek about his mom. “…I’m scared,” he said after a long moment of silence.

Derek wasn’t prepared for that. He licked his lips, trying to think of what he could say. “You’re… allowed to be,” he settled on.

“It’s going to hurt,” Reid whispered to his hands. “I don’t have any pain killers left from my surgery.”

Derek winced at that. He leant forward in his chair, found it didn’t put him close enough to Reid and so scooted it across the floor until he was. He reached out and took Spencer’s hands in his own, cupping them comfortingly. “Spence you’re not alone alright? If it’s bad, if you need help after… I can stay with you.”

Spencer’s eyes moved up. He looked surprised. He looked sad. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he said. “Not when I’ve just severed a claim that you wanted to keep in the first place.” It would be like rubbing salt in the wound.

But Derek was shaking his head, looking pained but sure. “I don’t want it. Not really. Not if it’d make you unhappy.” He tried to give Reid a supportive smile. “You can do this. You’re Dr. Spencer Reid. You don’t need anybody but you right? No alpha, no claims on you from anyone. That’s what you told me.”

Spencer knew he should find comfort in those words. They were _his_ words after all. He’d said them, thought them for even longer. Told them to himself for as long as he could remember. That he didn’t need anyone to take care of him. That he wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to even try. It’d been his protection, his independent omega battle cry since forever. It’d kept him safe. Helped him to succeed. 

But Spencer felt tired now, and he thought that maybe it was his old battle cry that was doing it. He looked up at Derek, at his kind eyes and earnest expression, at the way his hands clasped Spencer’s thinner ones between them. Was he still being independent? Reid wondered. Or had this somehow turned into him being obstinate? The idea was shocking, but Reid realized with a start that that was exactly what had happened. He’d been so fearful of acting on his biology, of becoming just another statistic, that he’d let that fear dictate his actions for so long. But Spencer wasn’t sitting there, about to let some doctor stick him full of drugs, because he’d become a slave to his instincts. He was there because he’d become afraid of letting someone—a good, kind someone—in. 

Spencer stared at where Derek’s skin touched his. “You…” he started, pausing when he didn’t know quite what words to choose. He tried again. “You don’t want to boss me around.” It came out sounding like a question, even though he hadn’t meant it as one. 

Derek looked taken aback, but quickly settled. “No,” he said. 

Spencer bit his lip, withdrew his hands so that he could fiddle with them in his own lap. “You’re not like other alphas,” he said hesitantly, almost as if he was testing the words out to see how they tasted. “You wouldn’t want to subjugate me. You like me the way that I am. You respect me.”

Derek tensed as if he realized that something important was going on in Spencer’s brain. “Kid?” he asked. “What—”

“I don’t want to do this,” Spencer blurted, just as the door opened and Dr. Banner walked back in.

“Okay. So of course you were right; you’re not pregnant.” He shrugged. “Like I said, sorry.” Snapping another pair of latex gloves on he reached for the packaging that held the syringes. “So all we have to do is give you the pheromone cocktail. That gets injected into the gland at your neck and then I’ll follow that up with a regular injection of Ciprofol. It’s a mild sedative that should help you get through the first— …what?” Dr. Banner looked between Reid and Morgan, noticing their frozen demeanor. “What? What happened?” he asked.

Spencer swallowed nervously. “I uh,” he looked pleadingly at Derek, hoping he’d give him some clue as to how he felt. He wished they’d had another minute to discuss this before the doctor had barged back in. But Derek was looking at him as if he’d support him no matter what he decided to do, and that gave Spencer the strength to say, “I don’t know if I want to do this.” 

Dr. Banner sighed audibly.

“Look I’m sorry,” Spencer started.

“No don’t be,” Banner said, and he smiled a little to show Spencer that it was all right. “This happens a lot actually. People changing their minds last minute.”

Spencer grimaced, didn’t know how to tell the doctor that informing him that he was just like a lot of other omegas who came through the clinic wasn’t exactly the best way to comfort him. So he just nodded politely, said “thank you.”

“No problem.” Dr. Banner took off the gloves he’d just donned. “We do have those counselors, you know. If you ever change your mind about that.” He looked between Spencer and Derek and stepped back towards the door. “I’ll let the nurse know you’re still in here. Leave the door ajar when you go.”

Alone again, Spencer exhaled loudly. “Oh boy.” He felt flustered. Relieved, yes, but also unsure. “Did I just make a huge mistake?” he asked Derek, not really expecting a reply. “If I change my mind again and come back they’re going to mandate counseling.” He groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Oh Derek,” he complained.

“I don’t know what you want me to say pretty boy. That was a pretty rapid turn around.”

“You didn’t stop me,” he pointed out.

Derek shrugged. “I could see those wheels turning in your head and didn’t want to interrupt you. Wasn’t exactly expecting what came out though.”

Spencer huffed. “Me neither.” He looked over at the mean tray of needles and drugs. “I just…” he sighed. “I just realized that maybe I was letting my fear rule me.” 

Derek watched him carefully. “Yeah?”

“Mm.” Spencer nodded. “And that’s no better than letting an alpha do the same, right?” He looked back at Derek, who he was glad to see looked affronted.

“Reid… you know I wouldn’t… I’m not like that. Like what you’re thinking of. Give me some credit.”

Reid nodded again. “I didn’t. And I’m sorry for that.”

Derek raised his eyebrows. “So you want to, what? Try it for now and see where it goes?” He looked very unsure for a moment, vulnerable even. “I meant what I said before you know. We don’t have to make it a relationship thing. We can just stay friends.”

Friends. Reid smiled. Had they ever even been friends? Maybe. But... “That’s not what I want,” he said quietly, just barely putting the words out in the air.

Derek’s brow scrunched and he looked confused. “Then what—”

“I want to make it a relationship thing,” Spencer blurted, and he found that he felt much better after saying it. As if, by saying it, he was powerful. “Or at least, I’d like to try.” He peered at Derek. “If that’s okay with you.”

Derek sat there looking dumb for a second, before a wide, bright smile broke out on his face. Spencer felt something in himself go a little gooey at having put it there. “Of course! I mean,” Derek corrected, trying to reign in his enthusiasm. “Since it’s what you want and all. I’m game.”

Spencer could have laughed—did, a little. “Curb your enthusiasm,” he said, not quite able to kill his smile. “We’ll still have to tell Hotch. Come up with a plan for work.”

“With your brains and my charm?” Derek waved his hand through the air to show how little an issue he thought that would be. Spencer rolled his eyes and hopped off the table. He realized that he felt about ten pounds lighter leaving the exam room than he’d felt going in. 

Derek took him to go get Thai food, and after being teased mercilessly about being a complete failure with chopsticks, Spencer silenced him with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright alright alright! I'm onto writing more chapters. Come now mortals, and leave tribute at the altar of impending Derek/Reid angst (reviews accepted as tribute).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Stay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563189) by [dearsam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearsam/pseuds/dearsam)




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